Beyond

I know that I’ve spoken a number of times, here on this blog as well a in comments on other blogs, about the deplorable state of the internet infrastructure in a large percentage of the world - Particularly the UK.

A Post of Politics

In a proposed initiative announced earlier this week; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to unveil plans to allow low-income families in the UK to connect to the internet. The plan is to accomplish this by sending such families a voucher worth up to £700, (About $1350) depending upon the families’ means as assessed under the strange, outdated, and in places unfairly applied, British Law. These vouchers can be used to pay for broadband charges, software, technical support, or even computers themselves. This scheme is intended to be run over the next three years; and is primarily intended to assist poorer children and their parents to keep up with the recent use of computers in classrooms in UK schools which is seeing school reports, homework, and study materials being posted online at an ever-increasing rate.

“To ensure we are prepared for the times to come, the Government will fund one million more households to get online, enabling parents to link with the teachers at their children’s school and helping young people with their homework and coursework.” According to Brown.

It is also intended that the initiative will keep teachers and parents in constant touch with one another; rather than just by means of the three school reports per-year as under the old system.

Knowing the nature of rip-off Britain as I do; I foresee a lot of exploitation by British businesses in charging unacceptable prices for these services to the unwary possibly computer-illiterate bearers of these vouchers. I see larger companies capitalising upon this opportunity by offering their old stock in exchange for vouchers: Using this as a means to clear yesterday’s technology without any loss of revenue on the original marked-up price. I foresee amateur computer “technicians” taking advantage of this scenario; taking people’s computers to a professional repair shop, adding their own profit and charging the customer a fortune, then claiming vouchers as payment.

I foresee more of the following too:-

Part One (Above)                                       

       Part Two (Above)                                                      

This kind of behaviour by supposed “professionals” is utterly diabolical, completely unethical, and also totally illegal: Nevertheless it does happen - That was a real Channel 4 TV programme about a real con-artist operating in the UK some time ago. I have plans to do something towards preventing the British public from being ripped off; although unfortunately I currently have neither the resources not the ability to provide any sort of similar service to Mike Quigley (Above); despite the fact that my service would be totally ethical and not rip the public off as this cowboy did.

- And Queue Advertising…

As many of my readers may be aware; I build computers: I operate under the name of “Kustom Komputa” and have been trading as such in a rather limited capacity since early summer 2007; building computers for associates, friends, neighbours, and acquaintances mainly. I have several years experience in computers and also have qualifications in both analogue and digital electronics. I once again state that unfortunately I don’t offer a technical support service or a visiting computer repair service, other than a similar support service under the terms of the Kustom Komputa warranty to my customers where the customer has their faulty computer picked up by courier and returned to me for repair should any hardware component malfunction during the warranty period. I also only deliver to addresses in the UK currently.

Please do enquire with Kustom Komputa about a new PC if you find yourself on this scheme. I build each individual computer for the benefit of the customer that will own it. I will build tower-only or I will supply peripherals and/or operating system as part of the package. The website is overdue for an update; but please don’t let that put you off.

Alternatively; if you’re feeling adventurous, you might try this:

Enough advertising for the time being: Let’s get back to the issue of this proposed Government incentive. Despite being well-intentioned this is once again too little and too late; something that we in the UK have come to expect from any government in power at any time:

The Real Politics Part

Despite this bringing the possibility of allowing some of the less-well-off families in Britain access to the internet it neither answers the matter of limited broadband access nor does it answer the matter of substandard infrastructure throughout the UK: It is still the case that in many rural areas of the UK those with internet access have to rely on a dial-up service through their telephone lines at 56k on an old-fashioned dial-up modem simply because there is no alternative other than the expensive satellite broadband services. The reason for this is because the companies that deliver services such as cable have in their own immediate interests only wired up the urban and suburban areas to benefit from their services. BT themselves, despite being able to deliver broadband services of up to 8mbps to customers virtually on the doorstep of their exchanges, are nevertheless unable to offer decent connection speeds to anybody living more than about a mile-and-a-half or more from the exchanges. This means that over 40% of the population of the UK are still unable to benefit from speeds above 2mbps; with many unable to access anything faster than 56k dialup due to location and/or financial reasons.

The fact is that were this 1998 this would be acceptable; although barely so. In reality this is 2008 and the situation is totally unacceptable. It has been brought about by the failure of the current Government to address the matter of proper investment in technology and the infrastructure of the World Wide Web in the UK. At the risk of sounding like a politician; although hopefully without the echo-chamber effect of the hollow words of a politician; I feel that it is time for the British people to get up out of their comfort zone and lobby Parliament to gain and institute the necessary investment.

The British as a nation have become complacent and have lost all enthusiasm for keeping Britain great; in fact it appears that they’ve given up - Because the politicians that are supposed to be setting an example have also given up leading and have set about doing as little as possible for as much money as possible.

This has set the tone for rip-off Britain - because our politicians are leading by example; ripping off Britain in the first place.

The latest round of pay-rises in the House of Commons would themselves have partially paid for a renewed internet infrastructure rather than putting wealth into the pockets of the “elite” who are supposed to be running this country on our behalf; not on theirs.

Unless further investment occurs in this area soon; the UK could end up as a third-world nation! Is that what you want? Then get off your arse and do something about it: The politicians aren’t going to do it for you; all they care about is how fat their wallet or purse is: they make token gestures but fail to address the real issues. Nothing has ever been achieved better than by people power: Politician-power is artificial synthetic crapola that fails and fails again; yet tells you that it’s working.

A new Government would be a change; but we’ve surely learned over the last century that neither Labour nor Conservative are any good. How many times do they have to fail over and over again before someone gets this point? I’m not saying that any party has all the answers; but surely it’s a fallacy to keep doing the same old thing in the same old way and expect different results? - I thought that was the definition of insanity rather than the definition of politics! perhaps the two have become identical? What’s your take on it?

Latest reports appear to indicate that Apple  aren’t quite as bad as it seems; in fact it might appear at first sight that they had a windfall.

That’s not exactly the case though: Despite news of their taking top customer-satisfaction honours among personal computer manufacturers, as released on Tuesday of this week, there are two things you should note before assuming that Apple are the tops and that this blog is heavily biased against them:

Firstly nobody even thought to ask Kustom Komputa if they even wanted to be included in this award; probably because they knew Kustom Komputa would trounce Apple into second place. On a more serious note, though, the index measures results only for the three-month period ended in June - Before the crap began to hit the fan for Apple, starting with the release of the iPhone.

Also on Tuesday; Apple admitted that a software update for their much troubled iPhone only partly fixes the connection problems it has had in connecting to 3G networks: In other words; honestly this time: “FAIL: We scratched again.”

It has been reported that it isn’t only Apple’s buggy software that’s to blame: There have been reports that the Infineon Technologies 3G chipsets used in the iPhone are faulty. That could mean that no matter how good the software, the hardware issue might cause the problem to never totally go away.

It has been reported that it isn’t only Apple’s buggy software that’s to blame: There have been reports that the Infineon Technologies 3G chipsets used in the iPhone are faulty. That could mean that no matter how good the software, the hardware issue might cause the problem to never totally go away.

The crap certainly has been hitting the fan lately for Apple; and maybe rightly so too: It seems that Steve Jobs has always been a bit of a dreamer;   and now incarnated as “Jobsweh”; the god of all things Apple; it appears that the power has gone to his head and mingled with his dreams, turning his wallet into a bottomless pit that seeks filling with loot, no matter what the cost.

As reported here on kkomp.com; Apple were recently forced to extend the free trial of MobileMe in a face-saving operation.

“We have already made many improvements to MobileMe, but we still have many more to make.” Said Apple.

To me that sounds like: “We did it again by releasing a service well ahead of schedule in order to market before the competition: It wasn’t actually ready to be released; but we did so out of a case of having to. We hope we can eventually get it to work.”

If they don’t it’ll end up costing them a few dollars more; which could incur the wrath of Jobsweh!

In the same email Apple stated “We know that MobileMe’s launch has not been our finest hour.” ROFLMAO - You’re telling me! What exactly has been Apple’s finest hour during the past two months? Steve Jobs seems to think he’s Apple’s answer to Bill Gates of late. The question is; is Jobsweh, the god with the bottomless pockets, fit to run Apple any longer? Should someone more competent and less greedy take over?

Fire Your Computer Technician!

A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for.

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In the post I made earlier entitled “A Geek’s Toolkit Supplement: Loaded USB Drive ” I spoke of what I described as “branding files”: Files that I add to the operating system to indicate that I am supplier, builder, and maintenance tech for a particular computer.

I can hear your brains whirring; so before you start thinking that I’m up to something naughty I’ll show you exactly what I mean. Oh yes; this only works if you have Windows XP installed, so don’t go trying it with a Linux or a OSX installation and then comment that I’ve messed up your operating system or “I can’t find those files in Ubuntu!” - “It doesn’t work with Leopard!” You’re quite right; it doesn’t - So be forewarned.

If this information has already been added to your operating system by the manufacturer then I suggest it best to just leave it anyway.

(Why are you playing about with your computer like this anyway? What do you hope to achieve? Oh well; your problem, not mine.)

The aim of the exercise is to customise Windows XP’s general tab in the System Properties dialogue box that you call up by right-clicking the My Computer icon and selecting Properties.

This customisation involves adding support contract information and a logo. It involves using only Notepad and whatever program you like to use to create a 256-colour bitmap.

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OK let’s start with the details: I won’t tell you exactly what details I put for computers that I build; so for this exercise we’ll assume that these details are regarding a computer built by the Acme Computer Corporation:

The computer is a Datamax, model 55102. Support line is 1-800-ACME…

Open Notepad and type the following text, replacing the example with your company’s details etc:

[General]

Manufacturer=Acme Computer Corporation

Model=Datamax 55102

[Support Information]

Line 1=Call 1-800-ACME for technical support

Line 2=  support [at] OMG [dot] acmecomputer [dot] com.invalid

Line 3=500 Billion Byte Drive

Line 4=Pixelgraphicsville, USA

Save this file to %windir%\Windows\System32 as Oeminfo.ini

Create a 256-colour bitmap of your company’s logo that is no more than 96X96 pixels in size. Save this file to %windir%\Windows\system32 as Oemlogo.bmp

Yes I deliberately soiled the picture: ‘Better safe than sorry.

To see the results either right-click on the My Computer icon or press the Windows and the Break key simultaneously.

And that’s how it’s done - No registry edits, no hacking into anything. This is a white box system builder’s trick; but it’s no massive secret. The files aren’t permanent anyway; if you remove them or reinstall your operating system the dialogue box reverts to default.

Fire Your Computer Technician!

A computer technician spills the beans and makes available the knowledge he has charged clients hundreds in service fees for.

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Being a geekette; that is a female computer designer/builder, as well as a blogger, I often get asked by my girlfriends (And some of their boyfriends too - Shh!) to pop over for a cuppa and attend to some problem they’re having with their computer. Most of these problems turn out to be software-related, so it’s always a good idea to come prepared - Although I can download most of what I need from the internet, sometimes their internet connection is not working for whatever reason, and more than one is on dial-up - Which can make downloading a program a 2-hour job in itself.

To combat this I have a 1Gb USB flash drive with most of anything I might need on it; plus loads of links to anything useful on the internet itself that might be useful which I haven’t bothered to include because I probably won’t need it.

A Topless and Bottomless Photo of Me

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I pop the cord from which the USB stick hangs around my neck, and go to sort out their issues.

I mainly have program installers in the form of .exe files on the USB drive: These are always useful. I also am able, in a worst-case scenario, to provide them with a temporary internet connection via my mobile device, for which I also carry a USB bluetooth dongle to plug into their computer on the rare occasions where it is necessary; such as an instance a year plus ago where a friend somehow lost the driver for their network interface device and was unable to communicate with their router as a result: I removed the old driver which was faulty but obviously didn’t have that particular driver on the USB device; so I set up a temporary internet connection via my mobile phone/bluetooth and downloaded a new driver, installed it - Target neutralised.

The items I have on my USB drive are listed below: I’m sharing this with you as I’m assuming that as a geek you too get called out to similar situations; but being unable to fix it on the spot you end up taking their computer home, doing the work in your spare time, and returning their computer at a later date; which causes inconvenience to both parties.

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The files I carry around on my USB device are as follows:

1. AVG Anti-virus.exe installer: You’d be mightily surprised how many people don’t run an anti-virus program! They might find that their computer slows down with use; and, not realising that it is caused by the registry getting cluttered with crap among other things, they start removing programs which they think are unnecessary in order to attempt to get the machine to speed up again, one of those “unnecessary” programs being their anti-virus program.

2.. A free anti-spyware program; such as AdAware and Spybot Search and Destroy - For the reason stated above or that they didn’t even know what spyware was etc. The latest AVG antivirus has built-in spyware-protection, but that protection is not exhaustive, so it’s always a good idea to install extra spyware protection supplemental to that.

3. Free FTP clients in .exe installer format, such as WS-FTP-LE and FileZilla: They do occasionally come in handy.

4. Diagnostic programs; such as Core Temp.exe, Diskcheckup.exe… I know; rather than listing them all here I’ll show a picture of all the icons below and to save a lot of my time I’ll let you Google for them all.

Obviously the folders are of my own making: Batch Files contains some useful batch files that I wrote or copied, Dragons Websites contains the URLs of the websites of the millionaire entrepreneurs from the BBC series “Dragon’s Den”, Glint(Program) contains the .exe file of the Glint System Monitor program, KK contains pictures which I use regarding Kustom Komputa; Suppliers, Parts, and Circuits contains URLs to suppliers of computer hardware components, plus a few electronic circuits, Web Shortcuts contains hundreds of various useful URLs, Websites contains copies of all my website files from some of my various sites, WP Plugins contains some useful WordPress plugins. Some of the files, such as DSC00* are photos from my mobile phone. aports.zip shouldn’t be on there as it’s a program that contains malware. OEM Exel and OEM INXP are folders containing branding files which I add to the OS to indicate that I am supplier, builder, and maintenance tech for a particular computer. The file “Kustom Komputa” is a copy of some files from my Kustom Komputa website. WP Themes contains WordPress themes. The Folder “Self-Installing Scr” contains a number of screensavers that I created and which automatically install on the computer upon activation of the .exe file thereof. (No malware involved.) The folder Paint.net contains the program Paint.net, and the folder “Sounds” contains some alternative Windows sound effects as spoken by the Daleks from the BBC TV series “Dr Who”.

There are also a number of shortcuts which you don’t normally see on any Windows desktop. These shortcuts; such as “Sound Recorder“, “Volume Control“, “Command Prompt“, “Device Manager“, and “Sleep or Hibernate” are described on this site, including the method to create your very own icon(s).

So that’s pretty much it: Carry this lot plus your own personal files around on a USB flash drive and you won’t go far wrong.

HTH (’Hope That Helps.)

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