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Table of Contents
============== Deadlines, Due Dates and Random Thoughts
Microsoft Vista was originally promised for delivery in 2005. Guess what? It won't be delivered until 2007. Microsoft hopes to deliver Vista to corporations in November, but the commercial release won't be until January. At least these are the latest promises. May not be the last.
However, all isn't bad news. It's much better to have a postponed operating system than a flawed one.
Hardware venders are already crying that they will be missing the Christmas selling season (of course, they are politically correct enough to call it the "Holiday Season.") One of the more interesting developments for Vista is that there will be no separate, stripped-down version for PDA's and the like. If you want to have a PDA running Windows, you'll have to run one of the more mainstream versions. Not sure what this will do for pricing, but currently Windows sells for more than most cell phones. Hard to imagine Windows in the low-end cell/PDA market.
Firefox 2.0 Alpha has been released for testing. Considering that it is code-named "Dog meat" you can pretty well tell it is for hard-core testers only. It is most definitely NOT for daily use. However, the anticipated date for the production release of 2.0 is August 2006, so it should beat Vista out the door by a wide margin. At the rate things are going, it may well beat Internet Explorer 7.0. And that would be a surprise.
Speaking of IE7, beta 2 is out. Beta 1 is not functional on my home computer, so hopefully beta 2 will fix what ails it. Not that anyone needs any flavor of IE -- except that Windows Update won't work in Firefox.
Claria (formerly Gator/Gain) is abandoning the spyware business. Well, not exactly. Their software is for sale, but the company is getting out of the business. I guess since Microsoft isn't buying the company they are selling the assets. What is a rogue corporation with no active business but lots of money worth? Those of us who had to fix the computers they wrecked certainly hope the answer is "Not much."
And speaking of Microsoft possibly buying Claria, that rumor never made much sense. Vista is supposed to have tools that take care of spyware automatically. If they work (and lots of pundits say they won't), it would be foolish to buy a spyware company. And I don't think Microsoft would do themselves any good in their competition with Linux to inject spyware themselves. So, what were they buying Claria for? Just to fold the company and put the thorn in their side out of business? The rumor sure was persistent, but the logic certainly wasn't.
============== Riya
I don't often tout beta software, and even less often do I suggest signing up for an upcoming beta test, but this product is just too useful for too many to be missed. Do you have a digital camera? Do you have hundreds or thousands of pictures on your computer? Have you carefully renamed the alphabet soup camera name to something that identifies all the faces in your pictures? Me, neither.
Riya is a program that will recognize faces in pictures. You tell it who it is once and it will pull their face out of a crowd time and again and rename the picture accordingly. The writers who have been in on the private beta say it works exceedingly well. And if it thinks Aunt Edna is Aunt Matilda and misnames your file, it isn't any less useful than when the file was named xyz421076.jpg anyway.
If it gets you started on keeping your mountain of photos in order, it is well worth the effort. Compared to the My Photos folder on my home computer, a shoebox is well-organized. Head out to http://www.riya.com and sign up.
============== Rick's Rant: RA's, RMA's, DOA's, what a hassle!
Have you ever wandered in to a Wal-Mart on a Monday morning and seen some poor 'ol employee pushing around 12 carts filled with junk trying to put everything back in its place. Well, sometimes I feel like that person trying to send back merchandise that has a problem or is just DOA (Dead on Arrival). One of the least liked jobs in our office (next to cleaning the bathrooms) is returning defective merchandise. Not only do you have to deal with the bottom of the barrel employees, manufacturers and distributors also hate the job and they assign their most inexperienced and untalented employees to the task. If I have offended anyone reading this that happens to have a job working in this field I suggest a career change! So we have the issue of communication, next is the problem with return guidelines.
Years ago when I started in this field computer dealers were just swimming in profits on hardware. The stuff was complicated and few if any customers understood the hardware or the related costs. They were at our mercy such as still the norm in the automotive repair business. Profits were good so everyone didn't mind taking the time to satisfy their customers, whether they were end users, resellers or distributors. Everybody was making money and everybody was happy. Warranties were long and phone support was readily available from many sources.
WAIT A MINUTE! I must be dreaming! This is 2006. Call me Rip Van Smith but things are not same. Poor Rick, this isn't Kansas anymore. Everybody has tightened their belts from top to bottom for one reason only. LACK OF PROFITS! Due to increasingly efficient production methods, huge available supplies and no end of outlets to buy product from, computer components have become mainstream and competition is fierce. Basically what I'm trying to say is lack of profits means lack of service. When you're making no money the last thing you want to do is take something back because the yoyo can't figure out how to use it. So they figured out the best way to reduce the amount of returns is to make it as difficult as possible to process a return. Starting with more and more restrictive return policies and ending with making it hard to actually reach a tech to obtain the much valued RMA number. Your ticket to freedom from the device that is plaguing you!
Some of the vendors I have to deal with want to do everything by email, INCLUDING call back tech support. I have a company whose products I sell called MSI computer. We have to call and leave a message and the tech will call back. It seems like he waits till after 5:00 or 6:00pm to call. I think he hopes we'll be gone by then. Either I catch him by working late or I find a message on the machine. Our main vendor and worldwide supplier have gradually ratcheted up its return guidelines to the point that many items come with a NO RETURN policy. Kingston memory has a NO RETURNS-EXCHANGE ONLY policy for its RAM. Don't get me wrong, Kingston has a lifetime warranty for all its products and that's why I'm an official reseller but if I have to buy special notebook RAM I'll sometimes choose Simple Technologies or Crucial. They may cost a dollar or two more but I can return them if there's a problem. Something I like to consider. One of the reasons I choose to use certain vendors is because they are easier to work with on these issues than others. I always recommend companies that have qualified support staff who are readily available when you need them (Humm, sorta like us). It's hard to schedule repair time when you're waiting for a call back.
I'd like to finish up with a personal tale of woe and angst. At Christmas time I special ordered a gaming video card for one of my good clients as a present from his father. He brought the computer in with visions of blasting away evil with ever better clarity and detail. Woe to all of us as the card was DOA and would not function. It was too late to order another one so we sent him home with promises of replacing it as soon as possible. We were closed over the holidays and in January we called, sorry, emailed MAX GROUP to return the card for credit but lo and behold! We had exceeded our allowed time of 7 days for credit. I called our salesman and pleaded and threatened to take my business elsewhere with no luck. He professed his sympathy to the situation but pointed out that down in the dungeon where the return department is located they have their own management and could care less what the salesman or the customer wants. Rules are rules and they live by them. SHEESH!
I was going to ask for a credit and then re-order the item to save time. Alas, that was not to be, so we dutifully pack up the product with all the original packaging and shipped it back after obtaining the valued RMA number. Unfortunately either I related the wrong instructions or our tech did not read the guidelines but you're not supposed to send anything other than the part itself. So 5 weeks later in February we received the product without the boxes or disks. CRAP! We called our client who much to our surprise patiently waited instead of going to FRY'S and buying it for cheaper. He brought his PC in and we put in the card and GUESS WHAT! Nothing! We received back an un-repaired card! At this point I felt really stupid and, as in the Godfather movie "A man in my position can't afford to look stupid". Testing the card before calling the client now seems mockingly clear. So as I finish this rant I'm gearing up to call them back and express myself. The staff is already selling tickets! Your editor bought one already. So wish me luck, patience, and good manners because it could be worse. It could be you!
============== CIPCUG Notice
You don't have to be a member of CIPCUG to subscribe to this E-letter, but we do make a short notice of upcoming events.
Don't forget this Saturday's general meeting, March 25, at the Camarillo Boys & Girls Club. Our guest presenter will be Dave Whittle. Dave will be presenting his "picks" at our March presentation: Muvee Autoproducer (new version recently), Photo Vista (new version just out), and Invisus, a new PC Security solution. Right now he also includes 3D Album, but may not be out by March). He ties them all together in a enjoyable, yet informative presentation called "Whittle's Picks for the Digital Home".
April 22: Don Miller, High Tech Task Force of Ventura County. This will be a presentation on computer forensics.
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