TECH: “OUTLOOK” does a “LOOKOUT”

Sunday, June 4, 2006

Most interesting.

This morning a routine email out to my isp started failing.  OK, no big deal. Often stuff has to try more than once to get out. After the third try, it was time to look into it. The message was "needs authentication". Huh? I haven't changed anything in my email accounts since I abandoned a spammy email address and created a new one. But that was a while ago. OK! Let's debug. Can we do the Outlook Lookout test account? Hmmm, everything works EXCEPT the send. OK, let's look at the email address. Looks good. Other settings? Hmmm, the outbound "needs authentication" box is unchecked. That's not right. Check it. Test it. OK. Send mail. OK. Hmm so how did that box get unchecked. Ghosts? The wicked witch of the west. Or just Outlook donning it persona of Lookout and making life interesting for the poor dumb user. And, people wonder why I want to leave Microsoft? At least, an open source vendor would be interested in my problem. Or at least feign interest if I was a donor. Heck, the beta software guys actually respond. Sigh!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: “NUANCE” support “IBM VIA VOICE” sucks — buyer beware!

Saturday, June 3, 2006

http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/6/2/04149/00911

http://www.gripe2ed.com/scoop/story/2006/4/11/0950/03255

Important points to note about the "doc with the broken software"

(1) It was the install that was broken, as well as the software.

(2) I paid for the support incident for which I got one email message to "try again".

(3) After a while, it is just not worth fighting about. They count on that! Give up; they win.

(4) After that, it is useless to resist. As a result, I will not BUY software retail. I will use Open Source and make a donation. But if it ain't fully functional, then I don't trust you.

(5) Guarantees, warranties, and rebates are worthless because they are not honored.

AND

(6) Never recommend anything altruistically because no good deed goes unpunished.

(7) Scansoft aka Nuance Sucks!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: Verizon Wireless Broad Band (VWBBie) in Seaside Heights speed test results

Saturday, June 3, 2006

479.2 kilobits per second
Communications 479.2 kilobits per second
Storage 58.5 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 17.5 seconds
Subjective rating Not bad

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: “ELEPHANTDRIVE” the auto backup service says they’ve fixed my problem.

Friday, June 2, 2006

Well we'll see. Let me try to back something up.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: “SYNCURA” appears to work more quickly now … fwiw!

Friday, June 2, 2006

http://www.syncura.com 

SYNCURA is "snappier" than it used to be. I am using it to keep my "team member" machines in sync. So basically, I take an encrypted file and drag 'n' drop into the team directory and it gets shared among a community of platforms I use. I'm not yet comfortable putting unencrypted sensitive stuff up "in the air" yet. Have to think about that.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: UNBUNTU LINUX first look … … looks … … GREAT!

Friday, June 2, 2006

I downloaded the Dapper Drake (i.e., UBUNTU 606) with the help of the FREEDOWNLOADMANAGER. It was needed because just a plain old download would fail 66% into it. Don't know why? Burned a disk of the iso that didn't work. Tried again and it did. Came up a little slow. Not used to booting from a cdrom. Worked flawlessly. Detected my wireless lan. Connected to http://freetalklive.com and virgin classic rock radio. Downloaded a podcast from FTL but could figure out how to listen to it. Listened to Virgin rock while I poked at the included sip phone. I want to put it up on some of the old hardware in the garage and see how an install goes. I have a box that can be reformatted. This might be the version that pushes Microsoft out of the operating system business. Besides have you seen the rumored prices of Vista and the footprint it needs. Interesting interesting.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: UBUNTU Dapper Drake release 6.06 is out

Thursday, June 1, 2006

Downloading is a challenge.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: “ELEPHANTDRIVE” the auto backup service can’t connect to their HQ

Thursday, June 1, 2006

From: feedback@elephantdrive.com
Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2006 7:35 AM
To: reinkefj Subject: ElephantDrive Customer Support

Thanks for your interest in ElephantDrive!  A customer service representative will contact you shortly to answer questions or assist with problems with the ElephantDrive platform. Our CURRENT AVERAGE RESPONSE TIME is less than 24 hours.

As of 5/31/2006 11:51 AM PST, we are still observing a larger than normal response from the various postings last week.  We have added additional web and application servers and the platform should be running smoothly now, if at times a bit slow.

Thanks for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience.  We look forward to continuing to serve all your online storage needs!

Sincerely,
The ElephantDrive Staff

——– Original Message ——–

> Name = reinkefj
> Email = reinkefj@gmail.com
> Problem = Elephant Desktop reports "unexpected login error"
> Steps = Connecting to Elephant Drive Headquarters?
> OS = Windows XP
> CPU = Intel Pentium 4
> CPU Speed= 2 GHz or more
> Memory = 1 GB

************

Sigh 

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: WRIDEA … quickly fixed a problem that I called to their attention.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

From: Reinke's R&D Techie Nerd Persona
Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 1:36 AM
To: help @ wridea.com
Subject: feedback password length

Gentlemen:

Your sign up screen offers password as six to sixteen characters. I of course plugged in a twenty character one. (Like a good beta tester!) It forced me to truncate to sixteen. BUT, when I cycled (logout and login), I couldn’t log on. I asked for my password. It worked. BUT, I discovered I have a twelve character one. Think you need a little work on this area.

Good luck,
FjohnR

===

Hi,

First of all, I am sorry for my late reply, we had some great response in last 4 days.
 
We have corrected the passwords problem, thank you very much for your feedback. Your feedbacks as a user are valuable to us, please don’t hesitate to contact us anytime if you have anything to say.  

Take care,
Best wishes,
Your friend at Wridea.com
Mert Hurturk
 
===

Hey, these guys did better than some software companies that I paid big bucks for their pos software (i.e., Nuance's IBM Via Voice, Microsoft, DELL). So, while I don't think I need this one, I recommend them for their hustle, Even though, this bug should have been caught with out me. But then that's why you have a beta.

===  

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: QNEXT, nice idea, but requires certain UDP and TCP ports … ugh

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

QNEXT could have been a useful solution to my need to move files between my various machines. It would be really nice to have the data structures move automagically between machine securely. I think p2p could be the "answer" if an appropriate client could be found.

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Posted by reinkefj

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