Thor's Archive
Kim and I had a spectacular evening last night at the LIBA Holiday Ball and Auction. The event was held at the Lodge at Wilderness Ridge. Proceeds from the ticket sales and the auctions went to support the efforts of the LIBA Foundation.
For those of you who have never been to the Lodge before, I woudl strongly encourage you to make a point of having dinner there before Christmas. We arrived after dark for the event and were both amazed by the spectacular display of lights on the evergreen trees that line the winding road to the Lodge. Thier reflection off the water behind the trees was breath takjing, and an inspiring sight for any Christmas fanatic!
The food was also a welcome break from the usual convention hall menu. The meat was tender and juicy, the potatoes were perfect and the drinks (although expensive) were strong.
The Bobby Lane Orchestra played after the auction and it was great to see so many leaders in our community having a great time dancing and talking. The picture man was there to capture the evning's hapenings, and I should have some images to share with you soon!
We are still sifting through the resumes we received fro our Journal Star advertisement for a full time technician. It is always a challenge to find the right person for the job. We have interviewed three candidates who just weren't our kind of material.
If you know a computer technician who wants to work for a company that pays well and treats its employees like a family, send them over to Schrock. If you are presently working for another computer repair company, please feel free to apply in confidence. Keep in mind that we do REQUIRE you to provide two weeks' notice to your present employer. We would never hire someone who would just leave their current team hanging. If an applicant would do it to someone else, they might just do the same to us someday!
We are also running an advertisement in the Omaha World Herald today and Sunday for a full-time HTML developer. We have won a few high profile website bids in the past two weeks, and we need another highly-skilled developer to make our customer's vision a reality. While any skilled HTML developer will be considered, skills in PHP, MySQL, and graphic arts will receive preference. We prefer candidates for this position to work in our Omaha Service Center.
You can see all of the positions open at Schrock Innovations at http://www.schrockinnovations.com/employment.php
Last Sunday Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg wrote a piece entitled Wait a while to buy a new Windows computer. While some of his recommendations are sound, there are a couple that I took issue with.
Mossberg advised consumers to wait to buy a new computer until after Windows Vista is released on January 30, 2007. While Microsoft and retailers like Schrock Innovations are offering express upgrade options to those who want to upgrade as soon as Vista is available, Mossberg accurately points out that a complete install of an operating system is always better than installing an upgrade.
But that is where we begin agreeing to disagree.
I do not recommend that you immediately purchase Vista as soon as it is released. Historically there have been bugs and problems with compatibility in newly released Microsoft Operating Systems. Think back to when you upgraded to Windows XP from 98 or ME. Remember all of the software that was not compatible? Remember that you had to buy a new scanner because your old $99 Scantek no longer worked with the new OS?
There is also some evidence that Windows Vista will be more of a challenge in this regard than XP was. There is a LOT of new and untested code in Windows Vista. The OS contains a completely new networking protocol, and a new security feature that is revolutionary in its ability to prevent worms from spreading across computer networks. While all of these new toys have worked great in beta, nothing is real until a few million people start running it.
We recommend that our customers allow other pioneers to take the arrows, and then fall in line after things settle down for a few months. Unfortunately, that means buying a new computer now rather than waiting until after Christmas. After January 30, ALL computers in the box stores will come with Vista by default. Of course, we will still be able to custom build you a Windows XP box if you wanted it.
There was one other small thing in Mossberg's column that I agreed with. Windows Vista is going to require a LOT more memory, hard drive space, and processor speed than Windows XP does. He recommended nothing less than 2 GB or RAM memory, a 200 GB hard drive, and a dual core processor for Windows Vista Ultimate (the highest tier of the Vista family).
We couldn't agree more with that thought. That's why our 2006 Holiday special comes with a dual core processor, 2 GB of memory, 1 TB (yes, 1,000 GB) of hard drive space, and a 19" wide screen display just for kicks. You can learn more about the Holiday Special at http://www.computersale.schrockinnovations.com.
The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing software that could be able to translate, and summarize spoken or written conversation or printed material automatically.
The software is nicknames GALE, and acronym for Global Autonomous Language Exploitation. The main interest in this software stems from a severe shortage of Arabic translators.
When the US toppled Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, millions of pages of documents were seized. The Defense Department did not have access to enough translators to make sense of the Arabic documents, so they posted them on the web so the public could help with translation efforts. While the idea was good on paper, it seems that some of the documents contained sensitive information on developing nuclear weapons, so the website was recently shut down to prevent proliferation.
It is estimated that a large portion of the information collected from signal intelligence (electronic monitoring) goes untranslated, and is therefore of little use to the military. However, if GALE was in place and functions as promised, advanced data mining techniques could be implemented on the newly translated information to give military planners and intelligence agencies a clear picture of the world around them.
IBM, SRI International, and BBN Technologies won a bid to develop the GALE system for the Defense Department and they must continually improve the software system to acquire additional research funding for the project. The final goal is to have a 95% accurate translation system.
The Defense Department believes that eventually this system may eliminate the need for scores of linguists and translators, but there is still much work to be done before the system is ready to be implemented in a real-world environment.
Companies that plan on developing software for the upcoming Windows Vista Operating System may find they need a few more PCs (and a few more licenses for Vista) to make sure their software works properly.
Most software development companies use virtual machines for software testing - a single computer that can simultaneously run multiple operating systems. For example, it is a lot easier to make sure a new program will work well in Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Media Center Edition if you can run both operating systems on one computer at the same time and switch between them in real time.
But there is a glitch in the licensing for Windows Vista that may aggravate software developers who currently enjoy having one test machine that can test a program on all operating systems simultaneously. Microsoft is only allowing Vista Ultimate and Vista Business Editions to run in a virtual machine. The other three versions of Vista will not run in a virtual machine and therefore must be installed on independent computers. So to completely test your software on all 5 versions of Vista, you will need 4 computers - one virtual machine for Vista Business and Vista Ultimate and three others - one for each lesser version of Vista.
Microsoft claims this is a needed step to preserve their intellectual property and suppress software theft, but some in the development community have voiced strong opposition to the change.
This month's patch Tuesday will include six different Microsoft security updates. One of the patches is very critical, as it plugs a security hole that is currently being used to take control of unsuspecting computers that are not equipped with firewalls on high speed connections.
As always, I recommend that all Windows users turn on their automatic updates so all critical Windows and Office updates will be downloaded automatically.
While Microsoft would not say specifically what flaws or components are being patched in this update, they did let on that this batch of updates will not contain a fix for a security flaw in Visual Studio 2005 that is currently being used to attack PCs. Tuesday's patches will require you to restart your computer after applying them, so don't leave any unsaved documents open on Moinday night, or you might find a clean desktop by Tuesday morning!
In October Microsoft released ten security patches, six of which were considered critical updates. Critical vulnerabilities typically can allow a virus to spread or allow a PC to be controlled remotely by a hacker to send mass email or perform other tasks.
I wanted to post something here to tell my regular readers that I have not abandoned you! We have had such a surge in demand for our on-site service that I have been filling in personally to pick up the slack. After working a 14 hour day, sometimes I just don't have it in me to blog.
With that said, there is something about working on-site in our customers' homes that is refreshing. It is easy in this business to get stuck behind a desk and get so caught up in the technical aspects of running the business.
I love being able to walk into a situation where someone is having a problem, explain what the problem is in plain English, resolve the problem, and then educate our customer so it doesn't happen again.
By the way, while 14 hours days of refreshing customer contact are fun, they do begin to wear a guy out. We have an ad running in the Journal Star for a new On-Site Technician on Sunday, but if you know of anyone who would be interested in the position, feel free to send them to our employment page so they can apply.
Ok, so this is not a technology post, but sometimes even my life ventures from the front of a computer screen. Take a moment to watch the trailer for the movie Obsession. Before you pull the lever on Tuesday for the national candidate of your choice, please consider the direction that your individual vote could steer this country in.
Sunday night I was watching FOX News Channel's special on radical Islam. My 3-month old son, Jacob was fussy that night, so he was still up and insisted on being held by daddy - constantly. So we watched the special together. As I watched, I found myself wondering if my son would have to deal with this terrorism mess when he grows up.
The special put a lot of things into context for me. It illustrated how all of the situations that we see as separate theaters in the war on terror are seen as a single battlefield to Islamic terrorists. It made clear the parallels between the early 1940s and today. It made clear that radical Islam is not going away on its own, and if allowed to fester it could become the greatest challenge that we, and our children, will face over the next 10-20 years.
Unlike six years ago, I will not be voting for Ben Nelsen this election. I am no huge Pete Ricketts supporter, but I know what is on the line here. There are those in the Congress and the Senate who believe (or at least say they believe) that America has no place confronting terrorism. I am afraid that if we end up with a split government we might lose two to four precious years in this war to political bickering and infighting. (And that is a big statement coming from me - Gridlock is generally good in my opinion, unless you are fighting a war of civilizations.)
While Iraq is different than Vietnam was, the lesson learned from that war was that disaster will ensue if politicians play politics with America's sons and daughters rather than setting a clear goal and working until it is attained.
Before you vote this Tuesday, ask yourself what matters more - political garbage or dealing with this problem so my son - and your sons and daughters - won't have to. You can get political garbage in any election. Your vote WILL matter in this election, and there are a lot of good men and women counting on solid leadership so they can finish the job they started and come home.
I am sorry I have not posted in a couple days. When it rains it pours, and our launch event just happened to coordinate with a spike in our corporate and computer repair business. Not that I am complaining about being busy - you won't ever hear that from me. But when you couple 19 hour days with a 3-month old baby, sleep becomes a precious commodity!
The launch event for the 2006 Holiday Special PC at the Villager Inn and Suites was a superb success last Friday. The gravity of the whole event did not completely register with me until we pulled into the Villager parking lot and I saw our name on the electronic marquee board on 'O' Street.
We did take video and audio of the event and as soon as we have the time to process it we will post it on the Schrock Innovations website. We have set up a new sub-domain to specifically talk about the Holiday Special ans well as future computer sales.
When you have a chance, take a moment to visit http://www.schrockinnovations.com. You can use our all-new comparison tool to see how your computer (or any computer you see advertised anywhere) stacks up against the 2006 Holiday PC. We have also posted Smart Computing Magazine's review of our Holiday PC. At our launch Event the Rod Scher, the editor of Smart Computing, said that he and his staff were "comfortable recommending our Holiday PC."
Mayor Colleen Seng gave her remarks and thanked Schrock Innovations for our support of Lincoln's America Recycles event on November 15. Gene Hanlon spoke about the challenges we all face from E-Waste in our environment, and Coby Mach gave away a free 3-night stay in a luxury Branson Condo (courtesy of http://www.insureneb.com).
We sold a few PCs after the event, and of course, there was a huge crowd gathered around the PC which was on display at the event. About 85 people attended the launch, and it was great to see so many of our customers coming out to support Schrock Innovations for the launch.
Now we need to get on with the business of finding 100 homes for these Holiday PC's. As of today, we have 94 left!
Today I was contacted by the Midlands Business Journal to comment on a story regarding the implementation of networks in small business offices.
I was impressed that the interviewer wanted to explore the good and the evil of business networks. All to often business owners assume that having a network is better then not having one. In reality a business network is only really needed if there is more than one computer in the office that requires the use of a single printer or Internet connection.
In some cases, the liabilities of copyright infringement, improper Internet use and productivity losses to personal activities can negate any gains attained by implementing a network.
The story should be printed in a week or so, so don't forget to pick up your copy!
Belly up to the table and help yourself to a nice helping of SPAM. NO I don't mean the dinner table or the wonderful canned delecasy. Online security firms are reporting a 30% increase in the amount of SPAM email floating around the Internet over the past 2 months, and your computer may be guilty of sending some of it.
It seems that botnets are being increasingly used to serve up junk email to unsuspecting users across the Internet. A botnet is a large group of computers (usually in the thousands) that are not properly patched with the latest security updates. Because they are vulnerable, crackers across the globe can exploit these computers and use them to harvest the email addresses of your friends and family and then serve them up a healthy helping of junk email - over and over and over again.
This begs the question, how can you protect your computer from becoming part of a bot network. Here is a quick list of the best ways to protect yourself:
- Download your Windows Updates (even the recommended ones)
- Install a firewall program
- check the website for other programs you use for updates
- Don't install free software if you don't know the source
Download Your Windows Updates
Ok, so this one seems like a no brainer, but there are still hundreds of thousands of computer users out there who do not use automatic updating to get the most critical updates as quickly as possible. In addition, if you so use critical updating to get your updates still take a moment from time to time to visit the Windows Update website and download the recommended updates as well. These updates are not considered critical, so they do not get downloaded automatically. In some cases getting updated software can help you defend against older unpatched exploits.
Install a Firewall Program
I am still amazed by the number of people who have high speed internet, but do not have a firewall program installed. We strongly recommend you upgrade to Norton Internet Security for complete firewall and anti-virus protection. A firewall is designed to stop unwanted communication between your computer and the Internet. If you have a firewall program installed your chances of becoming part of a bot network are dramatically reduced.
Check for Other Updates
I highly recommend you download all security updates that are available for all programs on your computer. Remember that bad people can use security loopholes in any program - not just Windows or Internet Explorer - to get into your computer. Visit the websites of the companies that make the programs on your computer and see if there are any security patches available.
Don't Accept Candy From Strangers
If you find a free program that you want to install, do a quick Google search on it to see if others have experienced problems in the past with it. A recent selection called Arcade from Download.com was jammed packed with the NSIS Media Spyware Infection. So if you are looking for a free lunch, be sure to ask what is in the sandwich before you eat it!
Ok, so maybe the title is a little misleading, but it was fun to write! A couple days ago I was driving through a Taco Bell drive thru picking up a highly-nutritious late evening dinner.
Right in front of me is a red SUV with magnetic Pete Ricketts signs on the side and www.peterickets.com across the back window.
I assumed this must be a campaign vehicle (seriously - who else would put magnetic political signs on their SUV) and being a Ricketts supporter, I wanted to buy their dinner for them.
After the Ricketts car had finished their order and pulled forward, I moved up to the speaker and told the confused Taco Bell employee that I wanted to buy their dinner. He said ok, took my order, and I pulled forward.
I watched the exchange between the employee and the Ricketts-mobile, and was a bit put off when the employee accepted money from the driver. The driver then looked in his mirrors at me for a few seconds, then looked away. Once they had their food they left, and I pulled forward.
The cashier immediately began defending him self as he explained that the driver insisted on paying and that he could not accept my offer.
These days I guess it is always wise for a politician to know who is buying dinner for their staff members, but the thing that steamed me a bit was that there was no thank-you for the offer. Not a wave, not a nod, nothing. While Pete Ricketts was not in the vehicle himself (it was a younger man driving), I though what a wasted opportunity. They have no idea who I am or that I would have blogged about that exchange. I can only hope the rest of his Omaha campaign staff is more personable.
I will still be voting for Pete Ricketts in 7 days, but I have to say that for a campaign in such a close race, if they lose by one or two votes maybe a simple drive through would have made all the difference.
If you have awesome technical skills and a passion for customer service, Schrock Innovtaions is looking for another full-time technician to help us handle our on-site computer repair business.
As a full time technician with Schrock Innovations you will have the opportunity to work on computers in homes and businesses dealing with everything from virus and spyware infections to network migrations.
If you are presently a technician with another computer repair company, please feel free to contact us to inquire about the position. We will keep your information in confidence.
We have an immediate need to hire, so please email your resume to the HR address on our online application page on the Schrock Innovations website. Only qualified, serious applicants please!
Unless you are living under a rock, you probably already know that the home of the Machacek and Fullerton families in Lincoln, NE is currently being demolished by Ty and the gang with Extreme Home Makeover Edition. What you probably have not thought about is the technology it takes to keep a build like this on track, and that most of it comes from local providers like Schrock Innovations.
But first, a little background on the families involved... These two families desperately want to be married and live together as a single family. The Machacek family's home in Havelock has a buckling foundation that has opened cracks in the walls of the home. The Fullerton family lives in an apartment, and does not have the needed space to house the five total children between both families.
Ty and his crew from Extreme Makeover Home Edition are going to knock down the old Machacek home and build a safe, new home in its place. Hartland Homes is doing the build for the show, which is scheduled to air sometime in January.
To complete the new build within the one week time frame it is estimated that they will need more than 1,500 total volunteers. Whenever Extreme Home Makeover Edition comes to town, they seek the help and assistance of organizations that are established in the community. Ty's team called on the Home Builder's Association of Lincoln to organize the needed volunteers, and the Home Builder's Association tapped Schrock Innovations to provide the technology they needed to get the job done.
We delivered three laptops to the HBAL team on October 25th so they could start the planning process. They plan on using the laptops to keep track of the volunteers, their schedules, and abilities for Ty's team.
Just when I thought we were going to be able to sit back and watch this amazing process move forward, there was a problem. Hartland Home's technology provider (a local competitor of Schrock Innovations) suddenly went out of business and failed to deliver the technology they had promised. Alissa from HBAL called me this afternoon and asked if we would be willing to help.
If you stop by our Service Center to buy a notebook, you might notice that we don't have any on display. That's Beccause we scrambled everything we had - our notebooks, our technicians, our vehicles, and our management - to make certain that Hartland Homes had everything they needed to keep this process moving on schedule.
With all of that said, additional help is always appreciated, so if you have a spare afternoon or evening sometime in the next week, or just a few dollars to donate, you can sign up for a shift or a donation at The Hartland Homes Website.
Its awesome to be a part of something larger than yourself, and Schrock Innovations is proud to be involved with this build!
I am proud to announce that Schrock Innovations has just teamed up with the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce to handle their technology needs!
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry is the organization that "protects you from the people you elect." They are the watch dogs that ensure your livelihoods remain strong and sustainable.
We will be installing a new file server, a number of new computer systems, a new network, and maintaining it all with a corporate maintenance agreement.
Schrock Innovations is very active in the business community, working with organizations like the Home Builders Association of Lincoln and the Independent Lincoln Business Association among others.
Mozilla released a new version of Firefox yesterday hoping to steal the spotlight away from IE7 with their Firefox 2.
Firefox 2 has new security features that include anti-phishing technology and a completely redesigned interface made up from user feedback and input from organizations like NASA.
Other new features include:
- Session memory
- Improved RSS Feed Management
- A close button on each tab
- An undo close button feature for when you close the wrong tab
Most of the new features are fairly self-explanatory, with the exception of the Session Memory feature. This new feature remembers that last pages that were open in Firefox when the browser was closed. When the browser is reopened, the previous pages also reopen.
As expected there has been quite a buzz surrounding this new release of Firefox, and Mozilla has set up two different download servers in hopes of serving as many requests as possible in the next few days.
This afternoon I had a conversation with one of our web development customers about the placement of her website in Google. She was concerned that she was not close enough to the top of the results in Google, which puzzled her given that she ranked well in Yahoo and MSN.
I explained to her that saying she does well in Yahoo and MSN but not in Google is like saying the Huskers can beat any Texas high school team out there, just not the college ones.
Google is responsible for more than 80% of all of the search traffic that reaches websites today, and it is evident in their posting of a near 100% increase in last quarter's profit. If you don't rank in Google, you may as well not rank anywhere. The key question to ask when discussing Google search results is what was your search term? Broad search terms like "Car Dealership" are very competitive, and are more difficult to get on top of. If you refine the search term for Car Dealership Nebraska you will have a much easier time making it into the top 10 results.
Upon telling my customer this, she paused. It is a hard concept for many business owners to grasp at first. You want to be every one's first choice for new cars, but if you try and win the "Car Dealership" search fight, you will lose and get no new business.
But if you choose to fight the winnable "Car Dealership Nebraska" battle, you could generate some new business and that new business could fund improvements to your site that can make it competitive for more broad search terms.
The key to attaining and maintaining good search engine results positioning is having an interesting website with content that changes on a daily basis. More pages is always better than less, and the more people who link to your site the higher it will rank.
The trouble is that there are so many websites out there competing for the top 10 spots that it is easy to be out classed unless you stay on top of your site. Going back to the example of our customer, I explained that there were some simple modifications that we could make to her site that would increase her results - maybe get her site into the top 100 results. But even there, she would not see much traffic. You really need to be in the top 5 or 10 results to make a difference.
To get there, she would have to add more text to her site and change it more frequently. She would need to invest more time into her site - daily time and energy - even though the immediate benefits are hard to see.
Take this blog for example. When it started we had very few readers. But I still made my best effort to come here daily and post new and interesting information for you. Over time, our readership grew and now we have over 9,000 visitors a week. Google has rewarded us with a page rank of 5/10 (0 is a non-important site and 10 is a very important site).
Now other websites reference the content posted here, which gives us additional credibility and raises our rank even higher in Google. But even with that, I have no illusions of ranking in the top 10 for the search term "technology blog." But if you do a search for "thor technology blog" or even "thor schrock" this blog is the #1 hit every time.
If you have a website and you want more traffic, drop a comment below and I'll give you some hints as to what you can do to improve your ranking. No charge for the free advice.
Computer hackers based in East-Europe, Asia, and Thailand have successfully hacked into thousands of TD-Ameritrade, E-Trade, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab user accounts in what is being called the biggest single identity theft crime in history.
The heist is currently being investigated by the FBI, the SEC, and the National Association of Securities Dealers, and with good reason. New York-based E-Trade spent over $18 Million to compensate its users for losses and Nebraska-based TD-Ameritrade (formerly run by Pete Rickets) also lost an undisclosed amount of money as a result of the intrusion.
It appears that the hackers bought little-traded penny stocks before the attack at very inexpensive prices. Once they had infiltrated the online brokerages, they leveraged the money in customer accounts to buy large quantities of the same penny stocks under multiple names. The sudden increase in demand caused the penny stocks to surge in value and the perpetrators were then able to sell their original shares at a huge profit. This kind of scheme is called a "pump and dump" tactic.
In the past, the pump-and-dump was relegated to those junk email messages you receive telling you about a hot stock set to explode on Monday. The hope is that the emails will encourage online investors to buy the stock so the email sender can sell his shares at a profit.
There are safeguards in place to warn security personnel at online brokerages if some one's account is displaying unusual activity, such as a mass withdrawal of funds or sudden wire transfers to non U.S. accounts. This attack was successful in large part because no money as actually withdrawn form the user's accounts. The attackers simply sold the user's holdings and used the money to inflate the value of the targeted stocks.
The Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation protects bank deposits at FDIC insured institutions for up to $100,000 in deposits. Online brokerage accounts are not covered by the FDIC, so there is no Federal safety net for this type of situation. All of the effected brokerages, however, have promised to reimburse their clients in full for any losses from the security breech.
Microsoft has officially released its newest member of the Internet Explorer family, IE 7. While the reviews from many industry leaders are mixed, as usual you can count on me to give you an unbiased evaluation of the new web browser.
As a preface, a few months ago I started recommending that all Windows users who currently use Internet Explorer should also install Mozilla's FireFox browser. While there are FireFox proponents who claim the open-source browser is safer than IE, we do not recommend it for that reason. I feel it is important to have alternatives should either browser malfunction. Since IE is built into Windows already, installing FireFox as an alternative makes good preventative maintenance sense.
With that said, Microsoft has introduced some features that are new to IE users. These features have been present in browsers like FireFox for some time, but they are a definite improvement to IE 6. The new version of IE includes the following new features:
- A redesigned interface
- Tabbed browsing
- A built-in RSS feed reader
- A new Favorites Center
- Anti-Phishing Technology
- Other Minor Improvements
The Redesigned Interface
After you install IE 7, the biggest difference you will notice is the redesigned user interface. Microsoft has eliminated the menus across the top of the browser window, and consolidated them into one single master menu. The back and forward buttons are prominently located in the top left corner, as they always have been. But the refresh button seems to have migrated to the far right side of the screen.
The address bar has been moved to the very top of the window, which can make for close quarters at times, but it also helps prevent spyware programs from replacing it with a shady search bar. Speaking of a search bar, now MS has installed a search bar that uses Windows Live Search to find what you want on the Internet. You can replace this with a Google, Yahoo, or other search box of your choice.
Tabbed Browsing
While FireFox has been using tabbed browsing for some time, many IE users will think of it as a new concept. Rather than opening a new IE windows for every different age you want to have open at once, you can now open a new tab in the existing window. That means no more task-bar clutter or grouped IE windows. There is just one IE window, containing several different tabs for the pages you have open.
There is also a feature that allows you o see a quick snapshot of what a tab contains. A simple click shows you exactly (in thumbnail form) what is on each tab.
Built In RSS Reader
Many IE users many not even know what an RSS feed is. That is because IE 6 did not have any integrated support for RSS feeds, let alone an RSS Reader. An RSS feed is a file on a website that is updated to announce a change to the site. For example, this blog is equipped with an RSS feed that, when you subscribe to it, will let you know when I post a new blog entry. While nothing I say here is that earth-shattering, RSS technology can be used to deliver weather information, changes to auctions, and other time sensitive information.
With the new reader built into IE7 you will be able to monitor these RSS feeds and easily access the new information!
The New Favorites Center
Just below the new Address Bar, is the new Favorites Center. This feature replaces the old favorites sidebar in IE6. There are tabs for favorites, RSS Feeds, and your IE history. The improvements should make it easier to sort and organize your favorite sites and feeds.
Anti Phishing Technology
The new version of Internet Explorer comes equipped with anti-phishing technology. Phishing is the practice of tricking visitors into entering their user names and passwords into a website that looks official, but is not. For example, you may get an email that looks like it is from your bank, but really came from a Phisher. You click on the link and arrive at a site that looks like your bank's website. You enter your user name and password only to find nothing happens.
What has happened is that you just handed your user name and password to someone who will have your bank account cleaned out in less than 30 seconds. To prevent this from happening, Microsoft's anti-phishing technology alerts you when you are visiting a website that may be designed to steal your personal information. While this technology is new, most freshly launched phishing websites are detected by MS within an hour or so.
Other Improvements
A new minor feature that is new in IE7 is Clear Type technology. Microsoft boasts that this will make the font's on your screen as sharp as print on a page. There is also a zoom feature that allows you to get up and close (up to 400x larger) with the content on a website that might be too small to read. It works very well on text, but does distort graphics a bit.
Printing has also been improved with a new (new to IE) feature that shrinks the web page to the size of your paper when you print. While this does mean no more cut off text and images when you print a webpage, it can also mean micro-sized text, as it is shrunk as much as needed to fit on the page.
Conclusions
IE7 is definitely better than IE6, however these improvements only bring IE7 up to the par set by other browsers like FireFox. Mozilla has a new version of Firefox set to deploy, and it is almost a certainty that other new features will be introduced in that release to give FireFox another edge over IE7.
I had the opportunity to attend last Tuesday's LIBA lunch, and boy am I glad I did. There was a lively debate between Jeff Fortenberry and his Democratic opponent. As far as debates go, it was fairly informative and there were just enough political jabs going back and forth to make it entertaining.
But I have to say the best part of the event was when I had the opportunity to award a brand new notebook computer to Paige from Strictly Business Magazine. Paige recruited 19 new members for LIBA's membership drive, besting all others in the effort.
Congratulations Paige, and good luck getting your email set up on that! I know a LOT of people who would love to be able to email you ;-)
With all of the talk about the bad things you can find on www.youtube.com, I thought I would find something funny and entertaining that would show you how this technology can be used to entertain as well.
The Colbert report is a news-like show on Comedy Central that takes the news of the day and addresses complex issues tongue-in-cheek.
In this episode, Colbert hosts Nebraska District 2 Congressional Representative, Lee Terry. This one is pretty funny, so take a few minutes to have a look!
YouTube has been in the news quite a bit lately. First, Google has offered to purchase YouTube and assimilate it into its own collective consciousness. (Resistance is futile).
But more importantly there have been numerous news reports about kids posting inappropriate videos advocating violence, bad behavior, promiscuity, and other vices than many adults would rather not have YouTube providing a venue for.
While YouTube has been quick to eliminate any inappropriate videos that are brought to its attention, many people are learning how convenient it can be to have a place to upload and share video content like family movies, television advertisements, and individual rants.
It is true that for every interesting thing you find on YouTube, there are a dozen dumb videos, but sometimes the hunt is worth the while!
In the past I have not been a big fan of Symantec's online renewal system. Over the past two years however, they seem to have made great strides in improving the system. My main beef was that renewals were too complicated to install and were often fraught with technical glitches.
I had the opportunity to renew my Norton Antivirus this week and I noticed that the online renewal was much easier, but there was also a LOT more fine print. As usual, I tend to read the fine print so my readers do not have to. Before you click I agree to that online payment for renewal, there is something you should know...
This year Symantec has started an opt-out renewal program. That means that once you pay for a renewal online, they store your credit card information and automatically bill you again each time your subscription expires unless you tell them you do not want them to.
This isn't a bad idea, really. In fact we are playing around with a similar system for our Maintenance Checkup Home Edition software. But Symantec crosses a line because they FORCE you to pay and then REQUIRE you to log in a second time and turn off the auto-renew feature.
It would have been just as easy to provide a yes/no check box on the payment screen - heck, even default it to yes to snare those who don't pay attention. But it is completely unreasonable to force a customer to create a Symantec account, sign up for automatic renewals, assign them a password, and then ask them to log in to turn off automatic renewals at a later time.
If you plan on renewing your Symantec software online this year with your credit card or checking account, make sure you note your Symantec account information and immediately log in to disable automatic renewals, unless you want to keep it enabled.
Personally, I don't like people hitting my bank account once a year. I can't remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what I signed up for a year ago. Charge me monthly - that would be ok with me. That way I remember what I signed up for and I can cancel it without wasting a year of prepaid, non refundable service.
For the first time ever, Schrock Innovations will be holding a launch event open to the media to kick off our 2006 Holiday PC. The Holiday PC Launch Event will be held on Friday, November 3, at the Villager Inn and Suites in the Lincoln Ballroom from 2-4 PM. We will be giving away special discounts to those in attendance and there will be a drawing for a free weekend in a Branson, MO condominium!
We will have a number of awesome speakers present interesting content including Coby Mach - the host of 1400 KLIN's Drive Time Lincoln, Mayor Colleen Seng (or a representative from her office), Rod Scher, Editor of Smart Computing Magazine, Gene Hanlon with the city of Lincoln Recycling Office, and of course, Thor Schrock from Schrock Innovations.
Coby Mach will be our MC, introducing the speakers through the program and keeping us all on schedule.
The Mayor and Gene Hanlon will speak about America Recycles Day, the challenges that E-Waste poses to our environment, and Lincoln's Recycling Day contest for LPS students. On November 15th, she will be asking LPS students to collect pledges from Lincolnites to start recycling. The student who collects the most pledges will win a FREE Holiday PC from Schrock Innovations!
In an unprecedented move, Smart Computing Magazine has also agreed to review our 2006 Holiday PC for a write-up. This is a very special event for Schrock because nationally distributed magazines typically will not touch local or regional computer makers. This is an independent review, so it will be very interesting to see what the technicians at Smart Computing come up with.
And last but not least, I will be introducing the 2006 Schrock Innovations Holiday PC. I will give a brief presentation about its features and benefits, talk about our annual Holiday sale, and offer some launch-day discounts to those in attendance that will not be available to the general public. We will have the computer on display for those who would like to take a test drive at the event.
To wrap things up, Coby Mach will be giving away a free weekend in a condo in Branson, MO courtesy of www.insurneb.com. Everyone who has a ticket to the event will be eligible for the drawing, but you must be present to win.
We will be providing coffee, water, and fresh baked cookies from the Villager's bakery as well, so it should be a fun Friday afternoon all around.
Interested in attending? All you have to is contact our Lincoln Service Center at (402) 423-9595 to reserve up to 4 tickets for you and your family. Tickets are free, but we will need your name, address, phone number, and email address so we can contact you with a reminder the week of the event. We only have 100 tickets available for the Holiday PC Launch Event, and at the time of this post, there are only 76 remaining!
We will As we do every year, Schrock Innovations will be launching the biggest, most powerful computer we can build at our cost of $1499 in November. There will only be 100 of these computers available, and the full detals and specifications will be available at the launch event.
This is the first all-out media event we have ever held at Schrock and needless to say we are all pumped about it. Both of our Service Centers (Lincoln and Omaha) will be closed on the afternoon of the event, so if you will be bringing in a computer for repair, make sure you plan some time on Thursday or Saturday!
I have been invited to speak to a rotary club at the Knolls Country Club today. This is the second time I have spoken to this group in the past five years, and they always have excellent questions afterwards.
I will be talking about the importance of considering a Modular PC when it is time to buy a new computer. Rather than heading to the box store and buying a "canned" PC, consumers can get an amazing value by choosing a Modular computer.
The average consumer can save more than $1,000 over the course of 3 years by buying a Modular computer. Most consumers and businesses upgrade or replace ther computers every 2-3 years. By selecting a computer that is designed t be upgraded the costs of maintenance and upgrades can be significantly reduced.
I just received an email message from someone (supposedly) by the email address of harriet.gunn_aq@prodigy.net. The message in the email was a multi-page tirade about the Iraq war, the evils of America, the corruption of the Bush Administration, and the damage the Freemasons and Zionists have done to the "Citizens of the World."
I skimmed the message and quickly determined that it was just the usual cook conspiracy garbage - Dick Cheney & Halliburton, economies of the world are ruled by Jewish bankers, and a new one - Did you know that Woodrow Wilson's presidential campaign was paid for by Rothschild's? I attempted to reply to the email message, but I was not surprised to find that the email address bounces back as undeliverable.
Of course, the sender of the email message requested that I post the message in my blog and on newsgroups across the Internet so the truth would be available to the "Citizens of the World." The real purpose is to provide credibility to the numerous links to pseudo-news websites around the world and help elevate their status in search engine results. Its a scam - but a scam with a political purpose.
It is no big secret that I lean to the right politically, but this kind of garbage doesn't do anyone any good. Remember all of conspiracy theories about Bill Clinton and the Vince Foster suicide? I mean seriously... If you don't like a guy don't elect him. Its that simple. If you don't vote, then don't complain.
Maybe this is just something that gets techies like me excited, but I was very pleased to see that today the Schrock Innovations home page received a Page Rank of 6 from Google!
Page Rank (PR) is what Google uses to measure the value of a webpage on the Internet. The scale offers ratings ranging from 1 to 10, with one being irrelevant and 10 being extremely relevant. Each time you go up one number, it becomes exponentially more difficult to move up again.
While a web page's Page Rank is transparent to most people who use the Internet, having pages with higher page ranks can be extremely beneficial for ranking high in Google's search results and providing opportunities to assist our web development clients in getting their sites ranked higher as well.
Ok, I have that out of my system now and I am going back to work. We have a ton of new websites in the hopper, and I will be talking about them in the days to come!
Since 2001 a lot of computer designs have come and gone at Schrock. The one consistent design feature between all of our PC designs has been their Modular construction. Despite these design principals being the cornerstone of our computer hardware business, our customer service surveys consistently show that many of our customers do not know what makes a computer a Modular PC. Since more computers are purchased October-December than any other time of year, I think it is important to explain what a Modular computer really is, and how it is different than most mass-manufactured PCs on the market right now.
I preface my remarks by acknowledging the fact that there will always be some percentage of computer users who prefer a national brand PC regardless of any other contributing factors. These consumers believe that owning a computer assembled by a national company offers a greater degree of quality over a computer manufactured locally or regionally. Their opinions are as valid as anyone else's opinions, and nothing that I can write here will change their minds.
With that said, the Modular concept I introduced to my staff in 2001 is a simple one. My staff and I set out to design a computer that maximized upgrade opportunities, minimized costs, and only used standardized components in its construction.
At the time, Compaq and Dell were vying for the title of #1 computer manufacturer in the nation, and both were designing and manufacturing computers that were only intended to be in use for two or three years. If the computer was still functioning after the expected life cycle, within another year it would be rendered obsolete by Moore's Law. Consumers were being carefully guided into a 3-year purchase cycle that pulled at least $1,000 out of their wallets with each purchase. We wanted to find a better way.
The Three Pillars of the Modular PC
Pillar #1 - Maximise Upgrade Opportunities
In the world of mass-manufacturing, saving a few cents per unit can quickly accumulate in to a much more attractive bottom line. Given this truth, any for-profit PC company that mass manufactures computers would save money anywhere possible to boost their investors' return on investment. As competitors like Dell entered the marketplace with new cost-cutting tactics, the engineers sharpened their blades and trimmed any feature that was redundant or unnecessary to the original system designs.
The result of these efforts was a continual reduction in the price of mass-manufactured computers. However, these gains do not come without consequence. Consumer began to realize that the small size and poor air circulation in the customized casings coupled with the lack of surplus PCI slots, Memory banks, AGP ports, and drive bays made upgrading difficult, if not impossible in some cases. In addition, use of passive air cooling systems, odd shaped power supplies, and black-label motherboards gave the mass-manufacturers a greater degree of price control over the sale of replacement components. The bottom line was that every few years you would have to come back and buy a new PC because upgrading was ineffective, too expensive, or not possible.
As we started to design our first Modular PC, the challenges became apparent. If we used the components that would be necessary to open up upgrade options again, our PCs would be $50-$100 more expensive than those offered in the big box stores. In effect, we were attempting to undo the efforts of the very engineers who had been working so hard to cut PC prices on the national playing field. After some debate we decided to move forward despite the price difference. We believed that if people understood the long-term savings the Modular design would offer, they would be willing to endure a slight up-front "Modular premium."
We elected to use motherboards with integrated video like most national companies did, however we insisted that the computer have the proper ports on the motherboard that would accommodate a greater video card is the user should ever decide to upgrade. We also made certain that there were always additional memory slots, PCI slots, drive bays, and drive interfaces so that we could retrofit almost any combination of features our customers might want in the future. We also made certain that our cases and internal components were high quality, brand name components of a standardized design. As new technology emerged such as 64-bit CPUs, SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives, RAID (redundant arrays of hard drives), DVD-RW drives, and multiple core processors we have adapted out Modular designs to incorporate the capability to utilize such features.
The challenge in designing a Modular PC is to build a computer that offers today's technology at today's prices, while also holding the door open to the promise of tomorrow. This is the final question that each Modular PC must answer before it is released to our customers.
Pillar #2- Minimize the Price of the Modular PC
Although we knew that a Modular PC would never be less expensive than a mass-marketed computer, we needed to minimize the price difference. That meant that each Modular design we created had to be targeted to the largest possible audience - the home and small business user. With that audience in mind, we started looking for ways to reduce the production costs of our Modular PCs.
The first place we looked for price concessions was to our suppliers. We negotiated price breaks for orders as small as five units - an unheard of quantity discount in the PC technology industry. We also worked to develop relationships with local hardware wholesalers to reduce shipping costs. While this seemed like a logical idea on paper, it was more difficult to execute in reality. Almost all computer components are assembled overseas. That means they come to America on boats. Nebraska is equidistant from both coasts, so buying heavy items such as CRT monitors from local retailers made sense because they could spread the enormous shipping costs over more units. However, the local wholesalers' prices on smaller items like computer memory was often much higher than wholesalers on the coasts. In time, we were able to develop a supplier network that was custom tailored to meet our needs.
Next, we carefully selected the components that went into each Modular computer. There are literally dozens of suppliers for any one component that goes into a PC. The features and benefits can vary greatly between product lines, so there was a lot of trial and error as we tried to maximize the performance, fault tolerance, redundancy, and availability of each component that would go into our Modular design
Last, we attempted to streamline our own internal procedures to minimize the amount of labor that went into constructing and programming a Modular PC. These efforts are still ongoing today as our new software development division designs software tools to automate many mundane tasks. We also have become resident experts in using Microsoft's System Builder software. Not only was this required to comply with Microsoft licensing guidelines, it allowed us a greater degree in customization of the Windows operating system that we had enjoyed in the past.
Pillar #3 - Use only Standardized Components
If I had a nickel for every phone call and email I get about some great new PC product that will cut the costs of a Modular PC, I would not be writing this blog right now. There are some simple, straight forward ground rules about component selections for Modular PCs. First, the component must be available widely in the open marketplace. If only one company manufacturers a component, whoever used their components is completely beholden to changes in the strategy and product lines. In addition, when more than a few companies make the same component it creates competition and that drives down price.
Second, we were keenly aware that if we offered a PC that would be easy to upgrade, we would probably be called on to upgrade it at a later date. So in the back of our minds everything from the milling of the sheet metal of a case to the wattage of a power supply was important. In fact, one model of Modular PC that we built in 2001 was equipped with a CPU fan that would have been capable of cooling an Athlon 64 processor a full three years before they even existed. If we said it would be easier and less expensive to upgrade than buy new, it had better be or our credibility would be short-lived.
Conclusions
Over the years some have dismissed our Modular concept as little more than a design gimmick. While I would strongly argue against these naysayers, others have said that our Modular systems are no different from any other custom-built computer. In the most naked sense I suppose that could be true. If someone sat down and spent over 35 hours of research, 4 weeks of bench development, and 2 weeks of additional refinement they could probably build a computer just as Modular as ours. But our target market of home and small business users don't have the time or money for that, and our efforts provide them with a viable product option that is unique in the marketplace.
Before you purchase your next computer, give some thought to the valuable benefits a Modular PC offers. It is possible to have the best of today's technology while keeping an eye on tomorrow. It is possible with a Modular PC.
For almost 2 years customers have mentioned that our Service Center is difficult to find the first time around. We have wanted a larger sign for some time, however the covenant in our business park heavily restricts what signs may and may not be posted on the office building.
After 4 months of negotiations, design submissions, and design revisions, we finally have a prominent sign that will help our customers easily locate Schrock Innovations. The new sign features channel cut letters mounted on aluminum rails. The rails will reduce the number of holes we will need to drill in the building facade to achieve a secure mount.
There will also be an SI logo that will be back-lit at night by embedded LED lights. The light should be soft and gentle so as not to disrupt the homes that face our office to the south at night. We are also posting an updated door logo and are replacing our old, handwritten hours sign with vinyl lettering.
Similar changes are also being implemented for our Omaha Service Center (although that location is much easier to find than our Lincoln Service Center).
The sign is being installed as I write this and as soon as the installation is complete, I will post pictures for here, and on the Schrock Innovations contact page.
When I first started this blog I promised that readers would get a glimpse behind the scenes at Schrock, and maybe even a heads up to things that were in the works before they were "officially" announced. We have 4 major announcements lined up that will be released at various times between now and February 2007.
Some of these will be more impressive than others, but I can assure you that many of these announcements will further entrench Schrock Innovations as Lincoln's #1 Independent Computer repair company (as voted in the 2006 KFOR Best of Lincoln) and will further elevate our standing in the community as corporate leaders and industry experts.
In true Thor fashion, I can not provide a complete picture right now about everything that is developing. I am not being coy - some of the projects in the works are not completely developed and announcing them prematurely would not be fair to the other organizations and entities who are involved. What I can do is provide the information I have at this time, and inform you that by reading this blog regularly you will probably be able to piece together a complete picture before I even announce it here.
Ok, with the disclaimers out of the way, let the leaks begin!
Announcement #1 - Release Date - Early October 2006
This is the smallest of the 4 announcements, but the biggest at the same time (don't you love a riddle?). As soon as this one is complete I will definitely post about it here, and that could happen any time in the next couple weeks.
Announcement #2 - Release Date - Early November, 2006
Anyone who has been following us for a while knows what this announcement will be. And let me say that this year's special is AWESOME - so awesome it is catching the attention of industry experts outside Lincoln and Omaha. This announcement is also tied to Announcement #3
Announcement #3 - Release Date - Mid November, 2006
This will be one of the largest events organized by Schrock Innovations since our first Holiday Special in 2001. We are still working on the venue and getting all participants involved, but right now the guest list includes Coby Mach from KLIN's Drive Time Lincoln, the Mayor's office (schedule permitting), all Schrock staff, www.insureneb.com, and about 200 guests. This one is still in the works, but the plans are almost locked. If you want to win a free weekend for 2 in an awesome condo in Branson, MO, you might want to request one of the 200 free tickets now! Sorry Bob - SI employees are excluded form entering :-)
Announcement #4 - Release - Q1 2007
This one is a pretty good announcement too. I am currently in negotiations to ink a deal to contribute on a regular basis for a national computer magazine. ( I guess they might be considered international too - they are translated and distributed in Spain and Italy) Everything looks good right now, and if the deal goes through my first piece would appear in the February issue of their magazine. You better believe we will be promoting the heck out of this one.
So that it - all of the current behind the scenes gossip dished up in one place. Stay tuned - as I wrap up some of these deals, I will announce them here first!
About 5 minutes ago, my automatic updating function in Windows XP notified me that I had received a new update to install. The update, KB925486, is designed to address "A security issue...that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Microsoft Windows and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer."
Previously Microsoft had stated in an interview with ZDNet that they would release an update for this issue in October on the scheduled "Patch Tuesday." After their statement, many pornographic websites began using the exploit to take control of visitors' computers. There was also an indication that some other types of websites have begun using it as well.
To meet the demand for some type of work around or patch, many security companies - including Schrock Innovations - released non-Microsoft patches or workarounds that protected users against this new exploit that had the capability to cut through many firewall and antivirus software programs with ease.
It is unclear why Microsoft decided to release this update ahead of schedule, however I recommend that all Windows users immediately install this patch. If your auto-updating is enabled you should automatically receive the patch. If you do not use automatic updating, you should visit the Windows Update website as soon as possible to download and install the patch.
In a previous post, we offered you a utility that disabled your VML rendering as a work around to protect your computer. Once you have this patch installed you may run our utility again to re-enable your VML rendering.
For more information about this patch visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=73174