A Little Liquid WILL Destroy Your Keyboard.

My keyboard has been destroyed. I loved my keyboard. Guess I’ll have to buy another. I bought my last two keyboards from PcKeyboard.com and can’t say enough good things about them. Except that they get dirty and you had better not clean them with liquids.

Does anybody know how to clean a keyboard?

I suppose I’ll buy another. Taking my old one apart was quite educational. I had to remove screws. then there were two screws keeping the circuit board pressed against a plastic piece to a terminal strip. That was very difficult to put back together. The back of the keypad is actually glued with foam to outside back so there is no way to separate the two without ripping it apart. But that is as far as you can go because the keypad boards are held together with melted plastic. Somewhere in there is the problem. Perhaps I’ll soak the whole thing in water or something and then put it back together. I suspect it will further destroy the keyboard though.

Are there any mechanical keyboards that are better than this one?

Debian is good enough!

After playing with xubuntu on VMware I decided it was better for me than mint. So I installed it on one of my linux comps. It seemed to work fine from the DVD so I installed it. Once installed though XUbuntu did not know what to do with the second monitor. The second monitor just mirrored the first. There were no options to fix this. I searched for solutions and the only one that looked like it would work took significant amounts of time. More time than just downloading and installing a vanilla Debian. So I installed Debian.

Debian did handle the second monitor just fine. Debian understands multimedia too! So I can see YouTube, Hulu, Pandora, RealAudio, what not. FireFox was not installed by default. No big deal since I’m a Google Chrome fan. So I installed Chrome and it works just fine. A vanilla install of Debian seems to have everything one could want so I’m wondering why the need for Ubuntu or Mint? Debian even uses Gnome2 so one doesn’t have to fight silly interfaces. There has not been a single strange thing so far with Debian. No error messages. No warning messages. Everything installed perfectly and has worked perfectly. It’s really strange since Ubuntu and Mint area always having little minor problems here and there. Maybe Debian is the way of the future? It certainly seems the Germans think so. The entire city of Munich has switched to Debian. Guess I’m kind of behind the rest of the World. Debian has already become my OS of choice in just a few days replacing Mint and Ubuntu. If it continues to be so nice when the comps that run Mint and Ubuntu need updating I’ll switch them to Debian.

Some things are useful if done right off after the install:

1. apt get-install synergyc
2. apt-get install make
3. apt-get install inetutils-tools
4. alias ls=”ls -lart  | tail”

…

VirtualBox?

I was reading the Linux Journal’s “Readers’ Choice Awards 2011” this morning and came across VirtualBox. Normally I use VMware for everything but since VirtualBox came in 1st I thought I’d give it a try on my HP Laptop.

I decided to use xubuntu 11.10 since it should be the most responsive. I’m tempted to go with just plain Debian or failing that something with an even smaller footprint. Maybe NetBSD. Basically I want something that can run git and bash, maybe something graphical like firefox though not required.

So far the xubuntu install has been very slow. It finished and there were no problems. I’m now downloading and applying updates. It may be an hour before it finishes.

I installed the VirtualBox tools to make it go faster and rebooted. Until I had done that it was impossibly slow. Now it’s slow, like a 1991 version of windows on a slow computer, but it is workable. I ssh’d into another box and the fonts suck compared to those on putty. At this stage I’m not sure what I will do. Also started up firefox and it was slow but acceptable. VirtualBox with xubuntu may be a solution…

Flashed Unused Phone to Boost Mobile

Yesterday I took an unused smart phone supposedly unsupported by Boost Mobile and had it flashed to Boost Mobile. Furthermore I had it rooted so that I could have it act as an internet hotspot. (I’m not yet comfortable with these terms “flashed”, “rooted”, and “hotspot” so I hope I’m using them correctly.) It was supposedly a 30 minute process but it took the person closer to 3 hours. The hotspot capabilities were not great. Testing things at speedtest.net found: Ping=280ms, download=.1Mbps, upload=.1Mbps. Furthermore a few hours later I got a message saying “press yes to finish installing your updates and reboot your phone” or something very similar. I pressed yes and it took away the hotspot capabilities. Still I now have a smart phone, a Samsung Galaxy S, that is unlimited for only $50 a month.

I’m going to start making use of craigslist with WTB adverts. I figure I need a backup smart phone for when this one dies. (Given my personal experience over the past 10 years I can expect to break a phone every nine months.) So I have started putting in WTB Samsung Galaxy S2 adverts offering $50 if in good condition. I’ll put a reminder in my calendar for every Monday and maybe someday I’ll get a nibble. I have so very little respect for this market or the carriers. It’s all a rip-off feeding on the lemmings of our society.

HP Scanjet 8300 Review

I needed a large flatbed scanner to replace the pathetic one that is on my HP Officejet Pro L77880 All-in-One. The problem with the L7780 is that it sometimes needs to recalibrate itself. This takes many minutes. Also if it thinks there is no ink or paper in it then it won’t work. So I went to CraigsList and looked for some nice cheap flat bed scanners that are still supported in Windows 7. I picked up the HP Scanjet 8300 for only $20 locally at a garage sale. Plugged it in and Windows 7 immediately recognized it and installed the correct driver for it. I then put a document in to be scanned but couldn’t figure out the right button to press. Then returned back to the M$ machine and clicked on printers and told it to scan that way. Presto. It’s an old fashioned slow scanner but it does the job. So now I have a real solution and with an HP. (Never thought I’d have any luck with another HP product.) Looking online I see I saved $479 dollars by buying it at a garage sale!

Better Hosting Here

I saw this article today “Ditch GoDaddy’s SOPA-Loving Butt and Get a Better Web Host at a Discount” and it caught my attention. I left GoDaddy a long time ago but it doesn’t hurt to have a list of good hosting providers that are not out to damage the World.

2011.12.28 UPDATE: GoDaddy has lost a huge amount of business and has reversed their position on SOPA. They are a business after all and will follow the money. (It would be nice if they came to their conclusions morally but they didn’t.) To prevent the hordes from leaving them they have apparently been doing some more less than morally sound tricks. See this slashdot story:

First time accepted submitter wbr1 writes “Domain registrar Namecheap is accusing GoDaddy of violating ICANN rules and hindering domain owners from moving their domains to another registrar. They are allegedly doing this by submitting incomplete information to the new registrar, making it difficult to process the move.” Adds user bs0d3: “Godaddy has responded to these allegations today and insist that their practice of rate limiting Whois queries is standard practice to combat Whois abuse. Furthermore, they accuse Namecheap of playing foul because they released a statement before ever contacting godaddy directly to resolve these issues.”

Sell Now Before Apple’s Evil Empire Collapses

I saw this article Why you should sell your iPhone 4 and buy a Galaxy Nexus and figure the next time I get a smart cell phone, if ever, I’ll buy this one. The big selling point for me is the following statment “With the Galaxy Nexus, unlocking the bootloader and jailbreaking your Galaxy Nexus is a given; Google wants you to jailbreak it.” I don’t ever want to get a phone that I can’t move from one carrier to the next. Assuming the cell phone with very loving and special care can last more than a few months with me.

 

Skype & HP Pavilion g7-1219wm Notebook PC

The installation of Skype caused the laptop to crash. Don’t remember if I was using Firefox or Chrome but that might have had something to do with it. However once the computer rebooted itself automatically everything worked fine. Too fine. The camera is very clear. I took a piece of paper and folded it neatly a few times and then taped it over the lens. I don’t want to see myself or have malicious software take pictures of me without my knowledge. Really all cameras should come with a sliding cover so you can physically disable it. Haven’t ever seen anything like that but it’s a good idea.

 

Horrible Performance of HP Pavilion g7-1219wm Notebook PC

This computer is getting horrible performance. Nothing is running on it and 60% of both CPUs are in use. There are a few more processes on the list that I deleted before writing them down below. I’ll add them if I continue to have problems. I may just go back if I ever have the time and delete everything imaginable because I don’t like seeing the computer busy at 15 to 20% when nothing is going on.

atieclxx.exe The atieclxx.exe is a program of ATi Graphic card drivers. The function of atieclxx.exe is to give ATi Graphic card better performance so it just plays a subsidiary role. The MD5 of atieclxx.exe is 46b175d56d7235d700394ed99050617f and please be alert if its MD5 has been changed (viruses/spywares may also confuse you by using the name atieclxx.exe). Tried to delete it but access is denied.

ccc.exe CCC stands for Catalyst Control Center, and it’s part of your ATI video card driver package—or to be more specific, it’s part of the utilities bundled along with the drivers, and adds features like customizing your display, or setting hotkeys for different display profiles. As long as the ccc.exe utility is installed into your Program Files\ATI Technology directory, it’s a legit process that can be left alone. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, cpus still at 60%.

ccsvchst.exe*32 The ccsvchst.exe file is automatically added to your computer upon installing the Norton software, and it is referred to as the Symantec Service Framework. The ccsvchst.exe file works to display the GUI (Graphical User Interface) of Norton products, which usually include the Norton Security Suites. If the ccsvchst.exe file encounters a problem, the Norton’s graphical interface will only be displayed after the computer has been rebooted. Tried to delet it but access is denied.

csrss.exe This is the user-mode portion of the Win32 subsystem; Win32.sys is the kernel-mode portion. Csrss stands for Client/Server Run-Time Subsystem, and is an essential subsystem that must be running at all times. Csrss is responsible for console windows, creating and/or deleting threads, and implementing some portions of the 16-bit virtual MS-DOS environment.

dwm.exe One of the new features in Windows Vista/7 is the Desktop Window Manager (DWM). It responsible for the graphical effects such as live window previews and a glass-like frame around windows (Aero Glass), without draining your CPU. A DWM-capable graphics card is required to enable the 3D effects, as well as Aero Glass. (In older Windows Vista Beta versions, the DWM effects are controlled by the User Experience Session Management Service, via “uxss.exe”.) You can increase your computer’s performance if you switch to Classic Mode (turn off Aero Glass and Animations), or reduce your screen resolution.

explorer.exe This is the user shell, which we see as the familiar taskbar, desktop, and other user interface features. This process isn’t as vital to the running of Windows as you might expect, and can be stopped (and restarted) from Task Manager, usually with no negative side effects on other applications.

HPMSGSVC.exe*32 Remove HP Quicklaunch from the Applications menu. I just had to do it myself and stumbled on this site. If you want to remove Norton from your system or McAfee you need to use the tools provided by their makers and not the built in Add/Remove Applications. For Norton: Google Norton_Removal_Tool.exe and for McAfee it is MCPR.EXE Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

HPOSD.exe*32 Our database contains 6 different files for filename hposd.exe . This files belongs to product HP On Screen Display and were developed by company Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.. This files have description HP On Screen Display. This is executable file. You can find it running in Task Manager as the process hposd.exe. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

hpqwutils.exe*32 Latest new variant of the file with name “hpqwutils.exe” was discovered today. Our database contains 7 variants of the file “hpqwutils.exe” with final rating Safe and zero variants with final rating Threat. Final ratings are based on file reviews, discovered date, users occurence and antivirus scan results. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

MOM.exe mom.exe is a Catalyst Control Center or a Monitoring program from ATI Technologies Inc. belonging to Catalyst Control Centre. Although this is an ATI Technologies Inc. application there is a possibility that this could be a type of spyware if found in the following folder: \program files\mom\mom.exe. Thus it is recommended for removal if possible. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

perfmon.exe

sttray64.exe sttray64.exe is a stsystray.exe belonging to IDT Audio from IDT, Inc. Non-system processes like sttray64.exe originate from software you installed on your system. As most applications store data in your system’s registry, it is likely that your registry has suffered fragmentation and accumulated harmful errors. It is recommended that you check your registry to identify hidden errors now. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

SynTPEnh.exe  http://www.processlibrary.com/directory/files/syntpenh/24922/ syntpenh.exe is a process installed alongside the Synaptics touchpad for laptop computer touchpads. Provides additional configurations and support, and is essential on some machines for the functioning of this input device. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

SynTPHelper.exe http://www.processlibrary.com/directory/files/syntphelper/442937/ syntphelper.exe is a SynTPHelper Application belonging to Synaptics Pointing Device Driver from Synaptics, Inc. Non-system processes like syntphelper.exe originate from software you installed on your system. As most applications store data in your system’s registry, it is likely that your registry has suffered fragmentation and accumulated harmful errors. It is recommended that you check your registry to identify hidden errors now. Deleted it with no problems, everything still works, CPUs still at 60%

taskhost.exe And I think I have it narrowed down to the Windows RAC task…  This after installing (and buying a few) multiple spyware and antivirus tools…  I wonder if I should ask for reimbursement?? Anyway – my cpu was being consumed by the Windows Reliability Analysis Task – the way that I narrowed it down to this was by installing process explorer and letting it show me what was actually running under taskhost.exeI then went into scheduled tasks and stopped the reliability analysis scheduled activity  -  and presto the taskhost.exe went away and processor utilization shot down to essentially nothing Anyway – that seemed to help me… maybe it will help you Not sure why it is trying to burn up so much cpu… Based on the above comments I went to the control panel, selected system, then scheduled tasks, then disabled everything that didn’t seem necessary before rebooting. Now the system is at 15%.

taskmgr.exe

winlogon.exe

A Good PC Headset

I’ve been using several “Plantronics .Audio 655 DSP” headsets. They attach via the USB ports. Every linux/m$ OS I use has had no problems with discovering them. The sound quality and microphone are fantastic. For about $30 a piece, see http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=plantronics+.audio+655+dsp&x=0&y=0 it’s a wonderful deal.

These headsets are wired. I also bought the wireless version but the battery life is so bad they are not useful. For anything. The first wireless I exchanged thinking I got a bad battery. The second was no better. Furthermore the wireless version can’t be used while charging and the charging takes hours. So a few minutes of use, a few hours of charging, so discouraging! Stay away from the wireless version!

The wired version is probably the only headset 99.999% of the population needs. It has destroyed the market for any other manufacturer.