Thor's Archive
I have been running our new version of the Maintenance Checkup Home Edition for the past few days on my main PC and aside from taking care of a few false detections, it has been performing pretty nicely - especially for a beta version.
Version 2 of the Home Edition has been in development for almost 2 years. It has been quite a challenge to create an application that has the same ease of use that our 2005 Home Edition did, while at the same time introducing a number of new features including:
- Real-Time Spyware Protection
- The Ability to Exclude Files From Being Detected Locally
- The Introduction of SHA5 Hashes for Spyware Files
- Automatic Program and Definition Updating
- More Advance Hard Drive Cleanup Algorithm
- A Faster Scanning Engine
- A Month-to-Month Subscription Plan
- A Streamlined No-Hassle Renewal Process
- Support for the Visually Impaired
If you have a current subscription to the Home Edition you will automatically receive an update to the new version as soon as it is released, as long as you are running Windows XP or Vista. The new version of the Home Edition will not be available for Windows 2000 or Windows 9X operating systems. Those who have a current subscription and use 2000 or 9x will continue to be supported until the expiration of their subscriptions. After February, renewals for those using 9x or 2000 will no longer be available.
A new virus started showing up in people's inboxes three days ago that attempts to trick people into opening an attachment that appears to be a video clip related to a news story.
The virus is called Trojan.Peacomm and it arrives in your inbox with a subject line that resembles a news story. The subject lines are changing constantly, but some of the ones I have seen in the past few days include:
- The Supreme Court has been attacked by terrorists. Sen. Mark Dayton dead!
- A killer at 11, he's free at 21 and kill again!
- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has kicked German Chancellor Angela Merkel
- British Muslims Genocide
- Naked teens attack home director
- 230 dead as storm batters Europe
- Re: Your text
While the subject lines of the email message change constantly, the names used for the attachments seem to be fairly consistent. The names used include:
- FullVideo.exe
- Full Story.exe
- Video.exe
- Read More.exe
- FullClip.exe
As of the 19th, Symantec's Norton Antivirus has been detecting this virus, but if you accidentally double clicked on one of these attachments to view what you thought was a video, you may be unintentionally spreading this virus to the people on your email contact list.
To protect yourself from this and other viruses, I recommend you immediately update your antivirus software and run a complete system scan. Many of these attachments would have been stripped away before they reached Outlook and Outlook Express users, but users of other email programs could be at a greater risk of infection by this virus.
A new Compute This radio program has been posted on the Schrock Innovations website at www.schrockinnovations.com/radio.php. This week's show was very busy, with wall-to-wall calls throughout the program.
During the show, callers had questions about dial-up Internet, Music Match problems, and problems caused in Internet Explorer 7 by the Yahoo Toolbar.
The Lovely Kimberly had a great PC Pizazz website that will help you choose the right cruise for you based on other travelers' reviews.
Toward the very end of the program I teased some information that I have to keep quiet for a few more weeks. Schrock Innovations has won a MAJOR website development job that was being bid on by a number of qualified local competitors. We will have more information on this announcement on February 15.
My first article is scheduled to be published in March of 2007 in Smart Computing Magazine. In my article, I researched the different types of open-source software that is available and compared it to the commercial software that it most closely competed with.
You can read the first few paragraphs of the article on Smart Computing's website at www.smartcomputing.com. You can read the whole article online if you are a subscriber to Smart Computing, PC Today, or Computer Power User magazine.
I will also be authoring a second article for Smart Computing this month.
While I can't go into too much detail until the article is published, for all of you out there who want a simple, step-by-step guide on using some of the common (and free) anti-spyware utilities on the web, you might want to get your subscription to Smart Computing magazine today.
It costs about $30/year to subscribe, but it is well worth it. Smart Computing is not a book of advertisements like some of the other computer magazines are. Each page had great content that is written for the standard computer user - not the techie geeks out there like me.
Once you have the chance to read my article in March's issue, let me know what you think!
Last Tuesday Microsoft released some new security patches (as they do on the second Tuesday of each month) to deal with security vulnerabilities that had surfaced. Microsoft warned that one of the vulnerabilities (addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-004) was already being exploited, and that patching is critical.
Today it was announced that attack code using the security vulnerability addressed by Bulletin MS07-004 had been published on the Internet and that attacks using that code should increase significantly in the coming days.
So what does all of this mean in English?
It means that you MUST update your computer by visiting the Windows Update website. Many computers that are configured for automatic updating have already received and installed these patches, but there is no way to know for certain if you are protected unless you visit the Windows Update website.
Schrock Innovations recommends that you download all critical and recommended updated for your computer. You can view these updates by clicking on the "Custom" button on the Windows Update website rather than the "Express" button. All updates are listed as either "Critical," "Recommended," or "Hardware" on the left side of the page. Download the Hardware updates at your own risk. There have been many people who have reported problems with some of the drivers provided by Microsoft (especially video card drivers).
The bottom line is that you need these updates, and while many companies including Microsoft and Symantec have designed software to try to send these to you automatically, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in this case.
About three years ago, Schrock Innovations designed a website for the Deer Park Neighborhood Association at www.deerparkna.org. Since then, there have been numerous changes among the elected officers and board members and updating the website easily has become a concern.
To answer these concerns, Schrock Innovations will be redeveloping the website again and this time will implement basic text editors on a password protected administration page that will allow interested parties at the DPNA to edit the website as easily as they would edit a Microsoft Word document.
We will also be adding a President's blog to the website as well as a calendar feature that will keep the public and the membership advised of important upcoming events.
Of course, the website will be designed to place well in the search engines, and we have already arranged some additional links from the City of Omaha website that should help lend the new website some instant credibility.
Josh, our new HTML developer has been busy this week adding four new spyware removal tutorials to the DIY (Do It Yourself) section of the Schrock Innovations website.
The DIY section contains all sorts of useful help articles and tutorials covering subjects ranging from how to maintain your computer to removing nasty spyware infections.
You can see our assortment of articles for yourself at http://www.schrockinnovations.com/diy. Subscribe to our RSS feeds to know exactly when a new tutorial is released!
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry requested that a new sub-domain be added to their website to accommodate their Nebraska Leadership Program.
The new sub-domain can be found at http://www.nebraskaleadership.nechamber.com. This site was previously hosted on the Nebraska Online web servers, but was successfully migrated to our servers last Friday.
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a wonderful organization and I would encourage all business owners to join. If you ask them what the Chamber does, they will playfully tell you that they are the organization that protects you from the people you elect. I love it!
With the cold and snow today, we had an active day of calls on my weekly radio program about computers and technology, Compute This. Our show airs every Saturday at 10:00 in the morning on KFOR 1240 AM in Lincoln NE.
You can listen to the recorded show from today, as well as last weeks program at http://www.schrockinnovations.com/radio.php. The shows are free to download, and the audio quality is superb. The shows are best enjoyed over a high-speed Internet connection.
If you missed the show, we talked about the best maintenance techniques you can use to keep your computer running smoothly. John Spatz, candidate for the District 4 seat of the Lincoln City Council joined us to talk about his website, www.johnspatz.com, and the Lovely Kimberly kicked off a new series about the Webbie Awards for the best web sites in the world.
That's right folks! It's the second Tuesday of the month and that means it is time for another helping of updates for your Windows Operating System and Microsoft Office.
Eight fixes are planned for release today. If you have your automatic updating turned on, there is no need to take any action - your computer will download, install, and restart your PC for you in the middle of the night. (So don't leave any unsaved work open on your PC tonight when you go to bed!)
Microsoft also plans to release an updated version of its malicious software detection tool. Last month Microsoft released 7 patches (three of them critical).
Tomorrow at 3:00 John Spatz will be holding a press conference in the Holiday Inn's University Ballroom (Downtown Lincoln) to announce his candidacy for Lincoln's District 4 City Council seat.
John needed a website that would help communicate his vision for Lincoln while at the same time providing information about himself and his campaign. Thankfully we had plenty of time to get the design of the pages complete well in advance of the event. However, content is always a bit trickier.
I am proud and amazed with the Schrock Innovations website design team who went from a mock up design to a completed website in a total of 8 hours. You can see John's website at www.johnspatz.com. While there will be a few small additions in the coming days, for the most part it is complete and ready for action.
It was really neat to see how things came together with this website behind the scenes. John has some really innovative ideas that I believe will do the city some good. I would encourage any of you who can attend to stop by the Downtown Lincoln Holiday Inn January 9th at 3:00 for his press conference. It always amazes me when I see the work and effort that goes into an event like this, so I am eager to watch the end product!
Starting today, Schrock Innovations is hosting and maintaining the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry's website. The Chamber was faced with a challenging situation. Due to internal reasons, they had to move their website to a different hosting company. However, they also wanted the new hosting company to integrate web-based email with their Treo phones and Blackberries. With the legislative session starting on Monday, emails were flying fast and furious.
Schrock Innovations successfully migrated the Chamber's website to our new web server, and successfully implemented web-based email for the Chamber's 10 staffers.
According to IDC, a leading provider of IT research and advice, small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly outsourcing their Web design, hosting, and maintenance services. By 2008 IDC projects that approximately 80% of small businesses with a website will use outsourced web service providers.
If you have a small business with a website and are not satisfied with the service, support, or security of your web service provider, consider switching to Schrock Innovations. Call us or email anytime for a confidential quote.
eBay has announced some not-so-good news to the power sellers among you out there. For the seventh straight year, eBay will be raising some of the fees it charges sellers to post items for sale on the popular auction website.
While this year's increase is moderate, it may further exasperate those who make a living on eBay by shrinking their profit margins. The auction giant is increasing the price for listing an item by $.05 and is also increasing the percentage it takes of all sales under $1,000.
While the move is not good news to anyone who buys or sells on eBay, there is some controversy about what the price increase means to eBay's business model.
Some people believe the eBay has grown as large as it can get, and therefore can not open new markets for services. That means the only way the company can continue to grow revenue is to raise the prices it charges its customers (eBay sellers).
In addition, eBay's costs of doing business are slowly climbing as online advertising rates recover to pre dot-com bubble levels.
Others argue that the fact that the increase is so small and that eBay enjoys a relative dominance in its industry will shield the company from very many sellers leaving the online service for other providers.
About two years ago Schrock Innovations began bundling the Open Office Suite with our new Modular PCs. Open Office is a popular FREE alternative to Microsoft Office that offers word processing, spreadsheet, and database capabilities.
A critical flaw was discovered in Open Office that could allow an attacker to take control of a computer running Open Office. The most recent version of Open Office (Version 2.1) is not affected by this threat, so we recommend all Schrock customers using Open Office upgrade immediately to version 2.1. All computers built by Schrock Innovations (up to and including the 2006 Holiday Special) have version 2.0 or lower installed.
Version 2.1 is available on the Open Office Website as a free download. Use your Add/Remove programs control panel to uninstall the previous version of Open Office and then restart your computer. Once restarted, download and install Open Office 2.1.
If you do not use Open Office, there is no cause for alarm. This problem only impacts those who actually use the open-source office suite.
Schrock Innovations has been developing web sites for our clients for a few years now, and in mid-2006 we started offering advanced SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services. One of the biggest challenges that new website owners face is driving visitors to their new websites. After all, what good is it to develop a $2,000 website if no one comes to see it?
Websites are investments to business owners, and investments are expected to perform. To help meet this demand, Schrock Innovations started building a proprietary system to provide a quick way for business owners to get their websites ranked well in the search engines. For example, when you do a Google search for "remove popcorn.net" the #1 site listed is a Schrock Innovations tutorial. This does not happen by accident, contrary to popular belief.
We have always offered a degree of promotion to any individual who develops a website through Schrock Innovations. For example, when you develop a website through Schrock you receive free SEO for your website, a free appearance on our radio show on KFOR, and free links on our portfolio page. The point of this marketing is to drive visitors to your website and generate word-of-mouth activity.
But after that initial pop, it can be difficult to maintain that level of success without a marketing investment. Rather than spending thousands of dollars on radio advertising, or placing expensive advertisements in the newspaper, it makes much more sense to go after the consumers who are already on line and who are already looking for the product or service you offer.
That is where our advanced SEO services come in. We provide thousands of backlinks (links to your website from other websites) that Google and other search engines will find over time. As these website links are found, Google considers them votes for your website. When these votes accumulate to a certain point, Google will begin elevating the ranking of your website for a given search term. While some search terms are more competitive than others, a small investment can yield a significant increase in website traffic.
Consider this example. If you buy a yellow pages advertisement for your business, you are attempting to place your business in front of the eyes of consumers in your area who are already interested in your products and services. You sign a contract for a certain term, and pay the yellow pages company monthly. Now consider that more and more people turn to an Internet search using a major search engine instead of looking up something in the yellow pages. If you are one of the top results in that online search, the chances that you will bring that customer to your website are pretty good. This is the equivalent to a yellow pages ad generating a phone call. So in essence, advanced SEO services for your website is kind of like buying a yellow pages ad for your telephone number - except without the "we don't raise your price, we reduce your discount" racket (any one who has ever bought a yellow pages ad knows exactly what I mean).
We will have more information about our advanced SEO services and a detailed case study that shows the difference search engine marketing can make to your business. Stay tuned...
Just before the holiday weekend Adam successfully removed four particularly nasty spyware threats from a test computer using Version 2 of our Maintenance Checkup Home Edition software. Version 2 has been long awaited among our Version 1 (or legacy) customers, and for good reason.
Version 2, as it is called in the Omaha Service Center where it is being developed, sports some advanced features that were not available in the legacy version of the Home Edition. For example, Version 2 is pre-programmed to recognise and ignore almost every valid Windows and Microsoft file, as well as files from popular software programs such as Norton Anti-Virus, AOL, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Java, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and many more. These pre-programmed definitions are necessary to prevent false detections because some spyware programs will name their critical files with the same names as critical operating system files. Removing these operating system files can cause many problems, so it is important to check their validity and leave them alone.
In addition, Version 2 is equipped with a real-time scanning engine and a scheduled weekly full-system scan. this is a big improvement over the legacy Home Edition because now as soon as a spyware threat attempts to infiltrate your computer, the MCHE will detect it and remove it for you.
Speaking of removing spyware, the great majority of our customers have told us that they like the way the legacy Home Edition removes threats without a bunch of complicated dialogue boxes. On the other hand, some of our customers have also said they wished they had greater control over the removal process. To answer every one's needs, Version 2 of the Home Edition gives you the choice so you can select what you prefer. The default setting for the real-time scanner is to remove threats without asking you, but you can also set the program to inform you of the threat and ask you what do. You can also choose to ignore a threat, which will solve the problem the legacy version caused with people who actually bought the paid version of the Weatherbug program.
Version 2 has time-delay technology so there is no chance you will delete any temporary files or patch uninstall files until you are certain you are done with them. The program also sets system restore points so you can undo many changes make by the Home Edition by using Windows'; integrated System restore utility.
We have also resolved one of the biggest headaches of the legacy Home Edition - subscriptions and renewals. In Version 2, all subscription information is stored on our servers. The Home Edition captures a fingerprint of your computer when you install it, so even if your hard drive crashes and you have to have it replaced, all you will need to do is reinstall your Home Edition software and all of your settings, ignored threats, local exclusions, and subscription information will be restored automatically!
To help mitigate renewal headaches, the Home edition will have two different purchase options in Version 2. You can still purchase a single-year license and then renew it once it has expired - just like in the legacy version of the Home Edition. However, a less expensive and more convenient way to make certain you are always protected is to use the new monthly subscription system. This system will automatically charge your card each month for that month's subscription price. This way you can spread the annual cost of the Home Edition out over several months and cancel at any time after your first 12 months. Best of all, this system is completely automated on our servers so changes can be easily made without any complicated user names or passwords.
We are hoping to move the Home Edition out of extended alpha testing the first week of January and take it to preliminary beta testing then. With any luck, the software could be available for purchase as soon as late February.
I dropped a few hints about the new 2007 Base Model Modular Computer System on our radio show Saturday, but for those of you who missed the show, the system in all of its glory is up for public view on our Computer Sale website.
This new section of our website was developed to accommodate the 2006 Holiday Special, but will be used throughout 2007 as a center where you can easily find information about our latest computer specials, or customize a computer to meet your own needs.
At the beginning of each year we build a "base model" system that consists of the features we believe are vital to any new computer purchase. Of course, any included feature we recommend can be removed if unneeded and any needed feature can be added. The base model system gives us a great place to start building a Modular PC that meets your needs today while providing the expandability required to meet your future needs.
Take a look and let us know what you think. The biggest changes this year is the addition of 1 GB of memory (required to enjoy Windows Vista properly) and the addition of a dual core processor. While the base model's hard drive is slightly larger than last year, there are only one of them. You can add RAID data protection for an additional charge, which we recommend. The removal of the second hard drive was necessary to maintain an $899.99 price point.
I wanted to take a moment today to thank all of the customers that have helped Schrock Innovations have such a successful year in 2007. When we opened our doors in 1999 we had a simple mission statement - provide high-caliber service that is not available from other computer repair companies.
A lot has changed in technology since then, but Schrock Innovations remains an award-winning service provider. Thank you for choosing Schrock and thank you for recommending us to your friends and family. Many of our new customers this year were word of mouth referrals that did not even know about our radio show on KFOR, or our advertisement in the yellow pages.
It is personally humbling to know that you trust us enough to recommend us to your family members and close friends. You have my word that 2007 will more exciting things from Schrock that should make your computing life easier.
I sincerely hope you and your families have the brightest possible new year in 2007. God bless!
A new tutorial has been added to the Schrock Innovations DIY section. Some customers have reported receiving an "Error 10" message when installing a Norton product such as Norton Internet Security or Anti Virus.
The normal uninstall / reinstall with a double reboot does not fix this problem, and the Norton Removal Tool alone is ineffective as well.
I was faced with this problem while on-site at a customer's apartment in Lincoln, and designed the following solution to resolve the problem:
Resolve Norton Installation "Error 10" Problem
The cause of this problem is registry keys in the Windows Registry that have improper permission entries. Complete the tutorial below to reset the registry permissions to default automatically and then your Norton installation should proceed with ease.
Today I dropped off our new web server at Binary.net; the company that maintains our online infrastructure for us. Our web server is housed in a bank vault behind a 17-ton door. I had the pleasure of touring the vault today to get acquainted with the environment our new server would be occupying.
Since 2005 we have placed exponential increases in bandwidth on our online equipment, and our plans for 2007 demanded a much needed upgrade.
Believe it or not, the engine that was maintaining the Schrock Innovations online technology machine was a simple one. A K6-2 450 processor, 256 MB of RAM, and a 30 GB hard drive was more than enough to provide ongoing updates for our Maintenance Checkup Home Edition software, serve all of our clients' webpages, as well as the Schrock Innovations website as it has grown in national and international popularity.
But we have started setting our internal 2007 goals, and if we are going to meet them we were going to need more online power. A lot more power...
So what might we need the extra power for? Well I can't be too upfront about that at the moment, but I can say that the new version of our Maintenance Checkup Home Edition (due in February 2007) will make a greater demand on our server, as we are offering free 90-day trial subscriptions so people can try the fully-functional product and see what they think before they buy it.
In addition, we will be adding several high-profile website development projects that should double our server traffic in Q1 of 2007 and take us over 250,000 hosted web pages total. We will be gaining website hosting agreements form major business organizations in Lincoln and Nebraska as a whole, as well as national clients that could bring more than 100,000 unique visitors a day to our server.
The new server is a 64-bit AMD Opteron system with a 250 GB hard drive and 1 GB of RAM. We will probably have to upgrade that again late next year to 4 GB of RAM, but for now it should do the trick.
Our web customers and website visitors should only notice that pages from our websites will now load faster and there will be fewer delays during peak traffic times.
Schrock Innovations teamed up with the City of Lincoln's Recycling office to promote Lincoln's local celebration of America Recycles Day. High school students were challenged to sign pledges to start recycling if they were not doing so already. Each signed pledge was entered into a drawing and sophomore Shelby Krause from Pius X was the lucky winner!
Coincidentally, the week before she won the new Holiday Special PC, their family's Dell PC crashed completely and needed to be replaced. The computer has a retail value of $1499, and was presented to Shelby in a brief ceremony in front of the media in our Lincoln Service Center.
Gene Hanlon with the City's Recycling Department noted that Schrock Innovations' Modular PCs last longer than big-box store PCs (or at least longer than Shelby's old Dell!) and therefore they reduce E-waste in our landfills.
This was the second straight year that Pius X submitted the most overall pledges in the High School competition. Representatives from Lincoln Solid Waste Management and the Coca-Cola Bottling Company were on hand to present a total of $500 to Pius for winning the contest. City-wide, more than 3,200 pledges were collected form students.
I have just turned in my first article to my editor at Smart Computing magazine. I can't go into detail about the subject of the article, but I can tell you that I found a way that the average computer user could save more than $2,000 in computer software on a new computer!
Smart Computing magazine is published right here in Lincoln, NE and is distributed internationally. A subscription to the magazine runs about $30 a year, but unlike other PC magazines, Smart Computing is not packed with ads. It is a content-rich magazine that I would recommend to anyone.
My article should appear in the March 2007 issue of the magazine, so make sure you get your subscription today!
For those of you who didn't know, I totaled my Ford F250 pickup the day before Thanksgiving. I had put quite a bit of work into that vehicle, and I am selling the nerf bars from it because they do not fit on my new truck.
If you own a pre 1997 Ford F150, F250, or F350 you might want to take a look at my EBay auction to see if they are anything you are interested in. Obviously, if you are local to Lincoln or Omaha I would be willing to drop them off or schedule a time for you to pick them up.
The bars were not damaged in the accident at all, and my new truck came with running boards. My truck was equipped with a 3" body lift kit, so if you know anything about nerf bars you know it is hard to put them on a lifted truck because the hardware that comes with them is designed to mount to the body and the frame. If you lift the body 3", the OEM hardware does not line up.
To counter this, I had special mounting brackets fabricated. So this is an auction for the nerf bars and all of the original OEM mounting hardware and my custom mounting hardware as well.
As you can see, the nerf bars are not scratched, scuffed, or damaged in any way. I took great care of them using Eagle One chrome cleaner at least twice a month on the to inhibit any damage and / or rusting.
The bars attach to the bottom of your front cab body bolt and then at two points in the rear. There is a sliding bracket attached to the bar that clamps onto your frame and then an "L" shaped bracket that attaches to your body. I weigh 240 lbs, and these bars held me easily - even when bouncing on them.
A Westin authorized reseller sells these nerf bars for $285 without the mount kit. The OEM mounting kit runs an additional $111.95. So this equipment new would normally cost you almost $400.
As a side note, I am selling these fast because my new-to-me truck's engine blew 2 weeks after I bought it. So if there is a sympathy bid out there from a fellow Ford owner, know that your bid is keeping a 1991 Ford out of the scrapyard!
As a side note, I also had over sized Goodyear tires and American Racing Rims on the truck. I am selling these as well because they were not damaged. This was originally more than $2,000 in rims and tires at Sears, but now I have an F150 and the rims were made for an F250. I should have that auction up later tonight, so if you want them before then post here and let me know. Otherwise I will post a link to the auction on this blog as well once it is up.
Schrock Innovations would like to welcome the latest two new members of our team. Mark Smith has been hired in Omaha to oversee customer support for our Maintenance Checkup Home Edition software and Jeremy Reed has been hired in Lincoln as a new on-site technician.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, Omaha with dual degrees in computer science and software engineering. He will be overseeing all customer support inquiries, maintaining our customer support forum, and managing the Maintenance Checkup website as we release the new version of our Home Edition next year.
Jeremy has more than three years of experience in customer support and computer repair. He has extensive managerial experience which will come in handy as we add additional employees to our on-site services team.
Welcome aboard gentlemen!
It is no secret that Lithium Ion batteries can be dangerous if they do not function properly. Investigators are still looking into the possibility of a Sony-based lithium-ion laptop battery causing the fire at the Nebraska Wesleyan fraternity house last month. While Lithium Ion is normally safe, no other power technology has historically offered the capacity and energy density that a lithium ion battery could. This lack of options is why almost all notebook PCs today come equipped with Lithium Ion batteries.
But a new kind of battery could be on the shelves by early 2009. The new battery is a revolutionary departure from the old concept of daisy chained battery cells contained in a plastic housing that can be removed from a device and replaced. The new battery type is called Lithium Polymer, and while it may sound like a new concept, this is not the gel-based battery's first trip around the block.
Lithium polymer batteries were first proposed nine years ago, but technological limitations prevented the battery from catching on in notebook computer use. Now that is changing. Lithium polymer batteries offer some distinct advantages over Lithium Ion. Since the batteries are gel-based, the energy gel can be packed into nooks and crannies within the confines of laptop housings, which could allow notebooks to go even longer between charges.
Since the gel is not packed into the typical battery cylinders that we all have in our devices now, there is not risk of fire. Time will tell if these batteries take the place of Lithium Ion, or if some other fuel cell technology will take center stage.
The truck situation continues... When I bought my 1991 Ford F150 we had a little chat. I explained how my last truck was babied beyond belief, stored in a covered garage, washed and waxed regularly and oil changes every 2,000 miles. I told my new truck that all I ask in return is that it carry me where I need to be, when I need to be there, and if there is an accident that it keeps me safe. The ghosts in the machine and I had an understanding, and I dutifully started repairing the minor problems on the new-to-me truck.
I mentioned in a previous post that I was still getting a check engine light. I suspected a leaking vaccum hose, but then I discovered an oily substance in my air filter housing. After some quick Googleing, I discovered this was called blowback, and was most likely caused by a cloged PCV valve. I stopped by the auto parts store and bought the $4.00 valve, and put it in the next morning.
After replacing the valve, I started the truck and found no check engine light and a much more stable idle. As an unexpected bonus, my altranator needle stabilized as well! Thinking I had solved the problem I was on top of the world. I departed from Omaha to visit a few of my Lincoln customers that day while listening to my XM radio.
I arrived at the Waverly exit and killed my cruise to get on the ramp. I thought I heard a funny sound, so I turned off the radio and listened to the engine. It was tapping. That was not good. Not good at all. As I slowed to a stop at the end of the ramp, I touched the gas only to hear a rucus of tapping and clanging. My motor was not working right. Baffled, I looked at my gauges and all appeared well, but the sound was getting worse.
I limped into an engine repair shop that Blaze recommended to me called "The Shop" just off of 33rd and Cornhusker. Their technician did not even have to raise the hood. From the sound he could tell that my motor was shot. I won't go into the particulars here, but needless to say, it is going to cost me as much as I paid for the truck to replace the motor.
The mechanic asked me where I drove it in from. I said Omaha. He looked at me with a puzzled stare and told me taht at least two of my engine rods were blown. He said I was lucky to have made it to Lincoln at all. I agreed as I waited for him to quote me the monsterous cost of a new motor installed. As I waited, I thought back to my discussion with the truck. It had held up its end of the bargain - it got me where I needed to be safely. I smiled to myself and thought I guess I need to keep up my end of the bargain too.
The new motor should be in by Tuesday they told me. I guess I will be getting a BRAND NEW truck after all! (Ok, I am trying REALLY hard to be optimistic here!)
As many of you who read this blog know, I was involved in a rear-end collision that totalled my beloved Ford F250 pickup a few weeks back. Almost immediately the search started for a replacement truck with the following conditions:
1) No loans - I don't do car loans - The interest you pay on a car loan presses your cost of ownership through the roof. Cash for cars is the way to go.
2) It had to be decent looking - after all, my customer would be seeing this vehicle when I go on-site to fix their computers.
3) It had to be a Ford. I know how to work on them, they are easy to fix, and if I bought a Chevy Blaze would have killed me.
The replacement truck is a 1991 Ford F150 Lariat. Too old you say? Seriously the vehicle is pushing 15 years old already. But this was a very special Ford that was deserving at a another chance for service...
For starters, the body of the truck was in PERFECT condition. There is no rust (on either side of the body components), the interior is in factory condition, it only has 91,000 original miles on the vehicle, it is equipped with power everything, it is a 4x4, and it has a tow package.
Now don't misunderstand, a 15 year old vehicle will need some mechanical work, and so far I have had my share. Thankfully, Blaze was kind enough to give me a hand, and together we were able to complete most of the work in a day. Here is what we have done so far:
1) Plugs and wires
2) Cap and Rotor
3) Exhaust O2 Sensor
4) EGR Valve
5) EVP Sensor
6) Stereo, Speakers, and Sub
7) XM Radio Installed (and Blaze did a better job at this than Best Buy did originally!)
8) Toolbox mounted
9) Front Brake Pads Installed
10) New Air Filter
11) Oil Change with Lucas Stabilizer
There is still some work to be done - I am still getting an O2 Sensor code on the engine (probably a leaky vacuum hose), the alternator will need to be replaced soon, and I need to draw down the oil pan bolts to deal with some seepage. Other than that, the vehicle is in GREAT condition and ready to service Schrock customers. Even is you take all of the repair costs in to account, it is FAR cheaper to use this truck than to buy a newer one with a loan. The total cost of this vehicle was less than it would have cost for one year's worth of loan payments, assuming a $350/month vehicle loan.
Needless to say, I am happy and all of the Lariat features are a nice upgrade for a guy who was driving the XL model for three years!
I wanted to take a moment to welcome Josh to the Schrock Innovations team in Omaha. Josh will be adding some much needed HTML development capacity to the Service Center. Josh recently graduated from UNO with dual degrees in Computer Engineering and Mathematics, and his skills in development and graphics design will ensure that our customers are receiving the best possible HTML products.
This is a real milestone for our Omaha Service Center as this is the first time we will have a complete development team of specialized individuals in all areas of web design and software development. In 2007 we will be placing a heavy emphasis on our development services, which some of you may have already noticed.
For example, Lincoln customers may notice that our yellow pages ad has moved from Computer Repair to Website Development. We have also been investing considerable time and effort into online marketing, case study building, and infrastructure development. Josh's employment with Schrock completes the last piece of the puzzle required to get our new division moving at full steam.
In the past two years, Schrock Innovations has added numerous software and website design services that benefit our customers in Lincoln and in Omaha. We have landed both local and national development clients and completing projects ranging from Music Box websites to supply chain integration.
Shortly we will be adding a new section to the Schrock website to showcase our offerings and abilities. Of course, I will post the URL here when the section is completed.
Mary Weninghoff in Omaha, NE owns the Harmony Music Box Company. He website details the music boxes she has available for purchase. These are not the small music boxes you may have owned as a child - they are much larger, sound much better, and cost a bit more.
We designed Mary's website for her about 2 years ago. The site was image intensive and light on text so Google did not rank it very highly. Mary came to us in October and asked what could be done to elevate her website's ranking in the Google search results for the search term "music boxes."
In case you were not aware, Schrock Innovations has a growing stable of technology services, one of which is search engine optimization. We have had great success optimizing tutorials on the Schrock website, and the crown jewel was an adoption website my wife and I put together through which our son's birthmother found us and placed Jacob with us for adoption. Needless to say, anyone who can elevate a website's placement in Google has a skill worth paying for.
While our internal successes were great, we needed an external proof of concept that was not related directly to Schrock or any of its employees that we could hold up as an example to future customers. Mary provided us with such an opportunity.
When we started, Mary's website did not place anywhere in the top 10,000 Google search results. In two weeks we were able to tweak elements of the website to make them Google friendly and perform some additional "top secret" steps that elevated her website to #19.
The site continues to bounce between 19th and 26th in the search results, but considering that some of the other music box companies have more than 30,000 backlinks getting a rank of 19th is very nice. In fact, the ranking attracted more than 400 new customers to Mary's website in a single month. One of these visitors has initiated a multi-thousand dollar purchase with Mary, which shows that SEO can generate revenue for your business.
I will keep you posted on the progress of Mary's website and once the holiday season is compete we will write up a complete article with video and audio from Mary where she will be able to describe the entire process in her own words.
Around Thanksgiving many people think about the things they are thankful for, but last Wednesday I had a bad accident and I am definitely thankful that noone was hurt.
I was involved in a three car accident near 40th and South after I was done in the field on Wednesday. Thankfully no one was hurt, but my truck is completely totaled. You can click on the small picture above to see a larger image of the front end damage. The rear of the truck was also punched in.
My truck was a 1993 Ford F250, so the damage to either end of the truck was enough to total out the vehicle as far as insurance is concerned. It was truly a blessing that every one walked away from this one. My truck was a 3/4 ton pickup with a body lift. The vehicle in front of me was a Nissan Pathfinder and it was completely obliterated. Their rear and side windows were ejected off their vehicle and their rear door was smashed in.
The car that rear ended me was a Dodge Stratus. It managed to get underneath my rear bumper, shearing it off as well as a good chunk of the bed of my truck.
Every year I make an effort to think about the blessings in my life that I am thankful for. This year I was very thankful that my old truck performed perfectly and kept me safe in the accident. I will miss that old truck, but I have my eye on a 1991 Ford F150 4x4. I don't do car loans, so whatever I buy I will buy for cash.