We discussed this back in ‘06 and I am here to say that BitTorrent is still not useful. Back then I said,

For bittorrent to be useful, there has to more than a few users with fast connections. If you try to download something that is only shared by a few users, the download will take forever. Same goes if any of the users sharing are doing so over a dial up connection.

As you can see from the graphic above, I’ve almost got the complete download. .01GB is all that’s left and it’s gone caput. It’s been running like this for almost 24 hours and nobody out there has that last bit I need to complete the download.

We can only hope for the day when bandwidth and storage is so cheap that this kind of thing won’t even be necessary. I’m not saying BitTorrent is bad, but if it’s something that might be a little older or not very popular, it’s just not the way to go.

Instead, I want to take this minute to let everyone reading know.

I fucking hate voicemail

That’s all I got gang. 4 words, one of them naughty.

You can go back to what you were doing now.

If you have been following along Twitter, you might have noticed that a good portion of my days have been filled with removing virus’ and spyware from nice folks computers. I said days, but should include nights.

I don’t mind. I really don’t. It’s easy work (unless the system is completely hosed, then it’s good money) and it gives me the chance to educate the user on better practices so it doesn’t happen again.

Number 1 on the list is keeping your antivirus software up-to-date! If you don’t have antivirus software, then now is the time! I can tell you, 100% for sure that anything that comes with Windows will do nothing more than keep low-level hackers out of your computer. Nothing, and I repeat, nothing installed by or from Microsoft will keep your computer safe from virus’, spyware or other potentially bad software that your click happy fingers will bring into your machine.

If you have anything resembling security software by any manufacturer and it has the numbers 07, 06, 05, 04 or lower in it, it’s no longer working. I know what it tells you, but it’s not. In fact, your computer is probably already infected with something and you don’t even know it.

I’m going to putting up a series of posts this week that you can use to help yourself be a better internet citizen and help to keep your Windows PC safe from internet meenies that are using your computer to send boner spam or collect credit card numbers from your neighbors.

Lesson 1

For a few years you have heard me praise the goodness that is OpenDNS. There has been a banner on the right side of this screen for as long as I can remember. Look at it right now. Does it say you are using OpenDNS? (sweet!). No? Then it’s time. And this is your first lesson.

Click the link to find out how to change this on your machine. Too lazy to click? Here is the short version.

• Right click the Network icon on your desktop. It’s the one that has the work Network in it. If you don’t have that icon (or can’t find it in the mess of icons littering your desktop currently), then go into the Control Panel and open Network Connections
• Right click your connection and choose properties. If you are using WiFi, use that one. If you are jacked in, use that one.
• Find the one that says TCP/IP. Click it and click the Properties button
• At the bottom, find where it says DNS and click where it says Use the following DNS servers. In the 2 boxes below that, enter the following.
• Preferred: 208.67.222.222
• Alternate: 208.67.220.220
• Click ok a bunch of times, close the Control Panel

You are done. Congratulations! Your computer is one step closer to be safer on the internet. Next up: getting the damned things from your computer. Stay Tuned!

There are times when I do things just to get to you guys, you know that right? The toot above is a great example of that.

I guess the new Facebook app for the ATP was released this week. All over my Facebook page was post after nerdgasm post proclaiming how awesome it was. Twitter too. It was everywhere. One of the posts said it had to be installed twice, so I thought I would pick on that and run with it.

Holy crap.

You ATP fanboys sure love your phone. More than a few of you got 17 different kinds of defensive about that particular toot. I found it comical to say the least. At least it provided my fingers something to make the sound about today.

First off, it’s an application. For a telephone. That serves no other purpose than to help you access the time-suck that is known at Facebook. I have no doubt it is the raddest thing ever, but when I have to read that it is the raddest thing ever 50 times over, I just can’t sit by and watch.

So, I posted the above tweet.

One thing I already don’t like about it. You remember when you got your ATP, right? Every email was stamped ’sent from my iphone’ until so many people called douche that you turned it off. Now the new FB app has that ‘feature’. Please let me be the first.

Douche! Turn it off please.

As always, thank you for your time.

Get Windows 7, 50% off!

I admit it – I actually read the phishing e-mails, some more closely than others.  Not because I believe that the Crown Prince of Nigeria wants to give me any money or that I’ve inherited money from an unknown relative in Tiawan or anything.  It’s just that some of these e-mails are so pathetic that it’s kind of amusing.

The latest one to get my attention:

—–Original Message—– From: chenjb [mailto:chenjb@mail.stut.edu.tw] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 4:35 AM Subject: Please Reply to this email:acct.service55@gmail.com

Attention,

This mail is to get you inform that there was a record of a deposited fund of $1.5 million dollars in our Bank with your details by Steven Coleman Company Ltd as your own share of the contract you both did

You are been noted as to get back to us so that we can be able to work out the transfer immediately.

UBA BANKING GROUP PLC

E-mail:acct.service55@gmail.com

David Doye

Note that more details will be needed for transfer clarity sake.

Thanks,

chenjb Lui

Please Reply to this email:acct.service55@gmail.com

What I really like is the e-mail address it came from – this guy is so lazy he can’t even be bothered to send from an e-mail address that might almost be remotely credible… Instead he just uses what is quite probably his own student e-mail account from his school in thTiawan…  So here it is for every e-mail spambot on the interwebs – chenjb@mail.stut.edu.tw  SPAMBOTS ATTACK!!!!!

Turns out, the same is true of Verizon Wireless.

Thought I’d give them a ring to find out exactly what they would charge me to use my phone in the UK next month. I knew it would be bad, but it’s actually worse. I certainly hope you are sitting down.

If I were to call VZW, get the unlock code for my SIM so that it would work on the GSM networks available in the UK and then make or receive a phone call, I would be happily charged $1.29 per minute for that call. Sure that’s steep, but then I asked about data charges.

Holy crap. And, for good measure, holy crap!

$.02 per kilobyte. that’s 2 pennies for 1/1024th of a megabyte. I’ll save you the headache from doing the math by telling you that it comes to a little more than $20.00 per MB! Are you fucking kidding me? $20?!?!

Am I to believe that the largest cellular carrier in the United States, who, from what I understand, is pretty tight with Vodaphone, can’t work a better deal? No, I don’t think so. I think they VZW, much like the rest of the cellular providers, are a bunch of greedy bastards that like to take advantage of their idiot customers that don’t know any better any chance they get.

I’m still waiting for that point in history where humanity rises up against the evil that is known as the cellular phone industry and starts to demand fair pricing, good coverage and good service, not just a fancy handset. And, if anyone could point me in the direction to get on the mailing list for that memo, it would be greatly appreciated.

I use Twitter. I like Twitter. I think it’s handy to have around. But lately it seems that it is the only thing anyone can talk about.

For example, the word Twitter appears over 20 times on the front page of Mashable. I have unsubscribed.

In the last 2 episodes of TWiT, more than 50% of the stories were about Twitter. I have unsubscribed for the time being. Hopefully normal tech talk will resume soon.

Even on Twitter there is getting to be too much talk about Twitter. I just finished unfollowing about 5 of the worst offenders there.

It’s time to realize that there are more important things to discuss than how many people follow you on Twitter or what’s the best Twitter app to use or, or, or.

You people are like Pitbulls. You find something you like, get it stuck in your jaws and wave it around until it’s a bloody, limp mess that nobody wants anything to do with anymore. Time to find something else to talk about.

On Windows browsers (pretty much all of them), when you press the tab key (insert ridiculous apple symbol here), you go from field to field. This includes stops at drop downs, radio buttons and check boxes. Without doing anything, it just works.

But not so on the Mac. When I tab through a form invariably it skips drop downs and radio buttons and check boxes. This is terribly annoying. I would guess it is because browsers on the Mac more closely follow HTML standards, but I’m not sure.

I have some experience designing forms. Forms in Word, in Excel, in MS Access, even in HTML. I am of the belief that when it comes time to use a form, the user should not have to take their hands off of the keyboard to navigate. Only to check a box or click a button. Everything should be handled with the tab key (or shift-tab for backward navigation). Every form I’ve ever created does this.

The way to get HTML forms to properly navigation is by using the TABINDEX attibute. According to the W3:

The following elements support the tabindex attribute: A, AREA, BUTTON, INPUT, OBJECT, SELECT, and TEXTAREA.

via

Just about every form element in HTML supports the TABINDEX attribute as you can see above. I think it might be something that not everyone is familiar with. It’s as simple as adding

tabindex=1

Forms are a big part of the user experience on the web. It’s a shame not all sites treat them as such and just cobble them together without fully checking how they navigate. Just a little something to think about.

Sure, it’s simple, right? Find the app in The Finder, drag it to the trash and poof, it’s gone. Except that it really isn’t.

Over on Windows, MS made developers include a uninstallation routine with the installer. Sure it was hit or miss until Windows XP, but it was still there. And, it was there for many reasons, least of which is that uninstalling applications in Windows without it is practically impossible unless you are the original developer of the app. There are folders. There are .dll files. There are registry entries. Log files. Mold, mildew and soap scum. When you install an app on Windows, it gets everywhere.

Not so on the Mac. You open the .dmg, drag the icon out and that’s it. Everything that app needs contained inside of a nice package.

Until you run the app.

Suddenly .plist files are created and stuck in one of 37 /library folders, buried 4 or 5 folders deep from there. But not just in 1 folder, in multiples. Places where I’m sure normal computer user folk would not dare to go. These are also files that, when you uninstall an app, do not get uninstalled. You might have noticed this if you unstalled an app, then reinstalled only to find that your settings are still there. I thought that was odd the first time it happened to me.

Sure there are apps that you can get for the Mac that will help you to uninstall applications, including getting rid of all of those pesky preference files. But should I have to pay $15 or so for this? Sure I could go through and start deleting preference files, but what if I delete the wrong one? I could mistakenly remove the files for Transmit when I thought I was removing transmission. That could be a serious nightmare for me. Made even worse by the fact that I’m not using Time Machine (but that’s for another post).

Just don’t think that when you drag an application icon to the trash that it’s all the way uninstalled. If you do want to make sure an application is 100% uninstalled, go over and purchase AppZapper. That will do the geek stuff for you.

Speaking of the /library folder, is there a definitive guide that tells me what the difference between ~/ folders and / folders are? It would be keen if said guide also explained the hieroglyphics that are everywhere in this damned OS too. It’s been more than 2 years and I still don’t know which is which.