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A while back I posted about The TED Experience, a site that has videos of talks from a regulartalk-fest on the subjects of Technology, Entertainment & Design. One video that fulfills all three criteria is, I think, that of Caleb Chung.

Computers are tools of work as well as a means for users to enjoy things they might not otherwise see or experience. But computers don’t have to be a box with a screen, keyboard and mouse. They can be packaged in other ways, sometimes ways that are simply fun to be around.

Caleb Chung has spent years working with toys, as well as considerable time putting together working models of a variety of types. Perhaps you remember or even have a furbie? Cute little toys that had a variety of simple responses and movements. Caleb Chung made them.

Pleo’s are dinosaur toys, and Caleb apparently spent considerable time to make them as close to the real model as he could. While I can’t really comment on the accuracy of his model, I must say they are cute. Even on screen they evoke an empathic reaction, like seeing a puppy. It’s remarkable that someone could put together basic equipment that is capable of bringing such a reaction, similar to that we feel for living creatures.

And Pleo’s come with USB and memory card slots for user upgrades and changes!

Even more remarkable is that humans, the same people who can kill and maim with such apparent ease, can find caring feelings for a toy, for a collection of plastic and metal bits, while simultaneously turning away from their troubled fellow man.

One of the first uses to which the personal computer was put was bookkeeping. It actually predates using it to write. Very early on there was a program called Lotus123, a spreadsheet with basic formula functions that let users do numeric manipulation.

In a similar business model to Apple, Lotus threw away the chance to ‘own’ the world of spreadsheets by charging a small fortune for their product and going to ridiculous lengths to ‘protect’ their product, including things like, in Australia, if something went wrong with the install, the owner had to return the original boot disk to Lotus in Sydney, who had to send it back to the UK to get a new one.

Meanwhile, back in the office, the user, (usually a business) had no access to their data… for up to six weeks! And you couldn’t copy the boot disk to get around this problem because they put a hole in the actual disk to make it impossible!

So when a new program came along without these stupid restrictions, the world turned to it and Lotus123 quickly became a bit player on the scene. VP-Planner was a Lotus clone, but the big winner was Excel. Originally made for the MAC, Excel was ported over to Win-doze in the early days and it was good enough that it probably saved Win-doze from a slow death. (anyone who experienced Windows v1 or 2 promptly became a death-wisher for the product)

Excel actually came with a built-in switch to allow the user to swap it over to the Lotus123 keystrokes to make Excel more compatible and reduce the retraining needed to swap to the product. I’m not sure now because I am using Office 2007, http://www.themsoffice.com/ but I think the switch was still there in Office 2003.

And of course, things have gotten much more friendly with programs like Quicken and MYOB (Mind Your Own Business)

The computer has opened the world to anyone who can get to the internet. For those who haven’t spent a lot of time online, this may seem an exaggerated statement, but once you begin to explore the digital world, you will find yourself in a world without apparent limits.

Any project you may want to try, any information you need, any facts you want to check, you can find on the World Wide Web. You don’t even need to know how it works, nor the ‘best’ way to do things. Find a Search engine (see the above picture) and type in your query.

The Search engines recognise a range of human ways of expressing things, so it almost doesn’t matter how you specify what you’re interested in. You can type, ‘ship, sink, year’ and search through the results to find when the Titanic sank or you can type in ‘when did the titanic sink?’

Capital letters don’t matter as the search will return similar results with or without them. If you want to search for a particular phrase just enclose it in quotes. “(phrase)”

The worst part of searching the net is the possibility of getting lost. You get a page that has links to elsewhere on it and you click the links. They in turn lead you to more links which takes you further and further away from the original page. Eventually you wind up reading something that seems totally unrelated to the place you began your journey.

Note that this ‘worst’ aspect is, for a lot of people, the best part of web surfing. There is something strangely compelling about following the link-trail into realms of information you weren’t expecting to visit and a lot of new things can be learned along the way.

But if you’re trying for specific information to complete a project, link surfing can strip time from your budget faster than you would believe.

One of the ways we can use to demonstrate how ‘superior’ our society is to those gone before is to point out how much of our time is no longer devoted to daily existence. The creation of leisure time has spawned a vast industry, or rather several vast industries, devoted to finding ways to fill that time for us, to devising attractions to get us to spend our money on things to fill in that time, and to provide us with ‘entertainment.’

Television has been a tool that has almost singlehandedly, changed who we are. In its best form, it is a medium of information delivery, showing us sights and sounds from across the world, expanding horizons beyond anything previously achieved. At its worst it is a mindless, drivel-delivering system for dulling the mind, satiating the senses and inundating us with violence and political machinations.

Whether what it delivers these days can be called entertainment, I am not so sure. The TV is too much of a good thing – it delivers most of the inputs so that our brains go into sleep mode, simply accepting all that comes in with no critical faculties in play.

The computer tool has a different level of involvement. While it can provide a similar style of input to that of the TV, it isn’t used that way as much as was once thought. Instead there are games to play, there are blogs to read, forums to participate in. Using a computer as an entertainment tool mostly involves some participation from the user, which, when you compare it to the couch-potato world of the TV addict, can only be good.

No, I’m not talking about some special implement you can use on your computer – although that could be a fun topic – ‘What tool would you like to use on your computer?’  It could be sub-titled, ‘Can you lift a seven pound sledgehammer?’

Nor am I talking about the local guy you know who is a computer nut that can’t tie his shoelaces or converse in anything except ‘0’s and ‘1’s.

Above all else, if theirs is one definition of a computer, it is that it’s a tool. It is probably the best tool we’ve ever made, up there in effect on Man with fire and the wheel, but way above them in speed of impact on society. The computer has changed the way we work, the way we play, the way we find out things and the way we entertain ourselves, and it has done it in thirty years.

Tool:
1. an implement, esp. one held in the hand, as a hammer, saw, or file, for performing or facilitating mechanical operations
2. anything used as a means of accomplishing a task or purpose

Tools are things we use, things supposedly invented to make our life easier, or to enable us to do things we are unable to do alone. But when the personal computer came along, it was a tool that didn’t really have a use. Sure it was a nice thing for the original tech-heads – they could play and get all kinds of interesting effects – but for most people they were yet another reason to avoid such people.

So, how do you use your computer? What is the main function you perform with this wondrous tool?

By Mr JM

On TED.com you can find more of the TED speakers. If you have any interest in learning, if you’ve wondered about what is going on in our world, if you just like to think or be entertained by bright minds, take yourself to the TED site and spend some time there.

You know that feeling you get when you’ve spent the night watching TV and you can barely keep your eyes open as you head for bed? That dead in the head sensation which is really caused by the fact your brain has been put to sleep hours before by the mind numbing litany of sex, violence and enforced messages to buy and consume? That almost buried feeling that somehow, without really meaning to, you’ve wasted yet another night in an endless procession of nights without meaning or originality, trapped by the flash and glamour of the idiot box?

Watch TED instead. I can guarantee you will not have those sensations and feelings. You may have trouble leaving the screen, but your brain will not be numbed, your thoughts will not be tied into the straight-jacket ‘CONSUME’ pathways dictated by Corporations interested only in taking all your money and you will know you have seen Life happening in front of you.

As a tiny taster, a mere glimpse of what you may find on TED, here are some questions asked by Jonathan Drori as he talks about ‘Why we don’t understand as much as we think…’

1. A seed weighs almost nothing – where does the tree get all the wood?

2. Can you light a lamp bulb with a battery and one wire & could you draw a diagram of how to do it??

3. Why is it hotter in Summer than in Winter?

4. Can you draw a plan diagram of the Solar System showing the shape of the orbits?

See if you can answer these questions – be honest and write the answers down, and then go listen to Jonathan at YouTube.

By Mr JM
In an Info World gone slightly nutso, it is refreshing to find real data, to find sites which attempt to provide a path to knowledge that can be used to help elevate one’s awareness of either self or the world around us.

Each year, in Monterrey in the States, there is a gathering of people with a wide variety of interests, people who are making their own path through their chosen field of knowledge. Some are names you will know, like Stephen Hawking or Brian Greene, some are known only to those with specific interests like Susan Blackmore, Louise Leakey or Billy Graham and some you will not know at all such as Jonathan Drori or Clifford Stoll

You can find a collection of the TED talks either by searching youtube for TEDtalks or go to the Director’s pages http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?p=r&user=TEDtalksDirector&page=1

The TED Conference (TED for Technology, Entertainment, Design) brings together some of the most remarkable people you will find on the internet. In these mini-lectures (most are about twenty minutes long) you will be entertained, challenged and educated. You will find your buttons getting pushed, your misconceptions buffeted and your opinions being questioned for Truth.

Clifford Stoll has to be seen to be believed. Jonathan Drori asks questions to which you think you have the correct answer, only to find not only that you don’t but that the fact you don’t provides valuable clues as to how we think.

Susan Blackmore takes the concept of Memes a step beyond. Many people have no idea what memes may be but the concept of them goes back decades, and they affect everything we say and do, they provide the basics behind our best and worst behaviours and they explain why, for example, children who have been molested often go on to become molesters, even though one would expect their reality of the experience would ensure they would avoid such a future.

By Mr JM

I was browsing a site I visit occasionally and I ran across a link to youtube that seemed interesting. One of the problems I’ve seen with television has been the way what might have been a superb educational tool has been subverted into an entrapment machine, spewing out specially designed traps to hold the attention, to reduce the amount of thought and to lull us into being contented couch potatoes.

And to be honest, I don’t think the powers-that-be have too much interest in our contentment – as far as they are concerned, keeping us trapped on the couch is good enough.

The constant watching of TV allows us to be programmed and controlled on levels never before seen. Our individuality is reduced, our creativity dies and we become lazy thinkers.

The personal computer helped change this a little – computing required thought, it needed the involvement of the user and, at least in the initial stages, without creativity it was a boring pastime.

But I’ve seen the TV attitudes coming onto the net – to paraphrase, ninety percent of everything is junk, and the internet is getting close to, if not exceeding that level. It provides a medium that, just like TV, eats up time with little practical or creative result.

There’s a lot of junk data on the internet and not a lot of people these days get educated in how to spot the difference between real and useful information and somebody’s propaganda or nonsense presented as fact. And the idea of research is too much like hard work for a lot of folk.

By: Mr JM
There is a final step to using your new computer – getting it all set as you like it. I have seen people who fill their screen with icons. To me it looks chaotic and impossible to use, yet only rarely has my offer to ‘tidy up’ things been accepted. There’s probably a field of psychology to be explored in how people like to use their computers and why they do things the way they do.

Personally I don’t like a lot on my Desktop – I tend to store things in other locations away from my profile and if I need them regularly I place a shortcut to them on the Desktop instead. Your Desktop is found in C:\Documents and Settings\username along with other things in your profile.

Microsoft and other software vendors like to store things in various folders under C:\Documents and Settings\ that are personal to a user. Firefox and Internet Explorer store Bookmarks and Favorites there. Outlook places your PST file (where your downloaded email is kept) there as well

The problem with this, and why I don’t like to store things on my desktop, is a number of those folders get added into your loaded Profile. Put too much in there and you can slow your computer down noticeably. In fact, one way to help restore your computer to the power and speed it had when new if to clean up your Profile. Microsoft even have an applet (a little application) to do a basic job of it for you.

Check out [Start] [All Programs] [Accessories] [System Tools] [Disk Cleanup] – just run it as is, without changing the settings, and see just how much junk even Microsoft thinks it has put on your computer.

By: Mr JM
I’m ready to go, computers connect to the LAN (Local Area Network) and I have my 500GB drive in and formatted. I select my Installs folder – whenever I get software I copy it into the Installs folder and run the setup from there, my My Documents folder and my Downloads folder and start the copy.

It’s been a while since I checked the sizes of my folders – it turns out I am copying over 100GB’s across the network – even at 100 m/bit network speed, that’s going to take time – I go to bed.

There’s more to do however. All I have installed so far is Windows, Office 2007, and Antivirus. I need to set up the programs I use on a regular basis. There’s Nero so I can burn and copy CD’s and DVD’s. I have downloaded Firefox 3 and that will mean some of my prior add-ons will not work. For example, Real Player 11 used to let me download YouTube, Google and other videos – if you’re interested in a video, better to download it and watch it at leisure than to download it onsite every time you want to watch it.

We all have our own uses for computers – unless your current computer dies on you and you need to set up from scratch, it’s a good idea to make a list of all the programs you have installed and make sure you have them available for the new computer.

Often this means getting a new version downloaded and can lead to pleasant (and sometimes not) surprises in what is new.

To get a list for what is actually installed, check in [Start] [Control Panel] [Add/Remove Programs] Note if your Control Panel starts in Category view, there’s a menu item called [Add or Remove Programs] listed.

By: Mr JM
One of the gotcha’s with computers, or I guess with any task really, is finding out part way through a job that you don’t have all the parts.

When I first started with computers, my first machine was an IBM XT, 8086 chip, two five and a quarter inch floppy drives, (making me the envy of those with only one – there was a phrase used in the early days, the Floppy Shuffle, brought about because the computer would want your program disk to actually do anything but you’d have to take it out and insert your data disk for it to have anything to do things on) (more…)

By: Mr JM
Once you have all the needed in hardware, in drivers for the hardware and in software installation disks or downloads, things are ready to roll. With Windows installed on the machine, the chances are the video resolution is still set to Windows default. So the first driver to install is the video driver, either for the on-board video or for the add-in video card you’ve installed. Then at least you’ll have a decent looking screen to work with.

For me, the next install is the network drivers – that way I can copy down the rest of the software directly from the current computer.

I probably should do the network ones first but I abhor the default settings on my screen, and it takes little time to copy out the video drivers to a USB memory stick.

Before I run the network drivers and connect up, I make sure the Windows Firewall is turned on. This provides a very basic level of protection against invasion from outside your network. Click [Start] [Control Panel] [Windows Firewall] and turn it on.

Once the network drivers are installed I restart the computer so it will set itself up as part of my network. When I ran the Windows setup and it asks about network settings, I just accept default settings but I name my Workgroup differently than just ‘Workgroup.’ By matching the name of the Workgroup of the other computers on the network, the new computer will join the Workgroup as it starts up.

The next step is to ensure there are ‘shared’ drives or folders on the machine from which you need to copy programs and drivers. You can also share folders on the new machine and then ‘push’ the files across from the old machine. Or you can simply copy all you need out onto CDROM, DVD, or USB memory stick.

Once you have the drivers, install software for the programs you want to run and all your documents and user files on the new machine, you can basically turn off the old computer and move the new one to where you want it and just work on that.

Most computers these days are on the end of an ADSL connection to the internet. So, the first thing to install is the Antivirus software – I run with Symantec Antivirus, but there are good free programs out there, such as AVG, which will guard against nearly all attacks.

You also need to make sure you have Spyware protection, but that isn’t as important until you start browsing – there are viruses out there that will reach across an unprotected link to the internet and infect your machine.

By: Mr JM

So there you are, new computer open and ready for your tender surgical skills, it’s been built into Windows & is ready to run and all you need to do is add in your old failing hard drive so you can get all your precious data from it.

What do you do? Walk, don’t run, to the freezer and find your carefully baggied hard drive, remove it from the coldness, wipe off any moisture from the baggie and then your hands, then remove the drive from the (up till now) sealed baggie.

Wasting as little time as possible, plug in your cold hard drive, both data and cable, check everything is secure and there’s no stray metal bits touching any of the circuitry, then turn on the computer. Wait through the boot process, endure the mostly agonizing wait while Windows decides everything is in place and then click [Start] [My Computer] then click the [Folders] button up in the menu bar.

What you should see in the left side (where the folders are shown) is your C:\ drive, then a D:\ drive which should be your briefly re-animated dying drive. The CD/DVD drive, if still connected (you didn’t need to use the cable for the hard drive) will be the E:\ drive.

Click on the D:\ drive in the left panel and on the right side you will see all the folders on that drive.

Now it gets complex – where is your data?

Unless you’ve set up specific folders previously, Windows will have stored your stuff in several default locations.

Documents – D:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents …note that Username is the name you used to sign in – you may never have actually logged into Windows but it happened automatically as Windows started. The default folders are called Administrator, Default User, and All Users. Anything else that looks like a name is probably the one you used.

Emails – if you use Microsoft Outlook, the PST file is found in - D:\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook

Favorites – for Internet Explorer they are found in D:\Documents and Settings\Username\Favorites – copy all the files there.

For Firefox they are called Bookmarks and they’re found in -
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\zxpw2j3t.default\bookmark.html – note – your Firefox folder will have something similar to \zxpw2j3t.default\ but it will be different – it’s a random folder name.

For other locations, leave a comment here and ask, but usually if you get all the above copied, you’ve got most of your life.

By: Mr JM

Now you have your Windows XP computer up and running nicely – the Video card is installed, sound is working and your computer is once more talking on the network or through your ADSL (Broadband) modem to the Internet.

How do you get your precious information from your dead Hard Drive?

Sometimes a hard disk dies for good. If that’s the case, you need to figure if your information is worth the maybe $1000 to get professionals to recover your data. They can open the drive, pull out the platters where all those little magnetic moments happen, insert the platters into a different drive and pull out your bits.

But mostly, the hard disk dies slowly. Here’s what to try – once you have a compatible machine to put the drive in.

You need the new PC to be ready to run, but open so you can insert your old drive. If you aren’t sure about what goes where, get some help. If the new machine is SATA and the old drive is ATA, disconnect the DVD in the new machine so the old hard disk can connect on the ATA cable.

Next, find a nice sealable plastic bag, one big enough to take the hard disk in it. Sandwich bags with the clip-lock seal are great for this. Take your old hard disk from the machine, carefully removing the attached cables – the ribbon or SATA cable should come off easily – the power cable may take a bit of a pull, but try to make sure you pull straight out.

Also be sure that when you are pulling on the power cable, there is nothing of knuckle-busting capability within reach of your freely swinging hand as the cable releases. Computers do like to take a blood sacrifice from anyone who opens them.

Place the drive in the plastic bag and seal it – seal it good – you do NOT want moisture in there. Now place the bag in your freezer overnight.

Yes, that’s right, in the freezer. It doesn’t have to be a standalone freezer – the one in the top of your fridge will do fine. Try to avoid using the one in the local supermarket – not only do they frown on the idea, but someone is going to get a hell of a surprise when they try to carve your drive for dinner.

By: Mr JM

If your old computer died and you’ve bought (or begged borrowed or stolen) another to take its place, you may think you have to start all over. There is however, some good news. If your computer died, the chances are excellent the hard disk is still viable so you can get all your work transferred over to the new machine.

And if your hard disk died, the chances are pretty good your computer is OK and all you need is a new hard disk. If you are one of the six people in the country who have actually backed up their work, you’re smiling. If you aren’t one of them, there’s a possibility of getting your data back from the hard disk.

First you need to have the computer up and running – this probably means getting a new hard disk, a Windows disk, and rebuilding your Windows system. There are some earlier posts in this blog to deal with how to boot to your Windows CD and run setup.

For most desktops, the Windows build process will provide adequate access to all the hardware. The areas where it tends to miss are with Video cards, Network cards and Audio cards. Also, laptops tend to have radically tweaked drivers for the hardware inside – you WILL need to find your laptop drivers and have them ready to install once Windows is up and running.

If you don’t have a list of the hardware that is in your machine, you should make one now. For those with a dead doorstop in front of them, open the machine, touch something large and metal for grounding, then look inside the box to see what identification you can find.

If the PC will start but not boot into Windows, you can usually find the information about what hardware you have in CMOS – this is the hardware setup of your computer – usually pressing [Delete] or [Del]> as the computer starts will get you into it, but on some systems it can be [F2] or even [F1]

NOTE: Change nothing in CMOS!!! Doing so without knowing what you do can kill your machine dead! Knowing in this instance means actually KNOWING what that setting is and what changing it will mean for your chips and circuits.

Once you have your hardware information, go to a friend, to your work or to an Internet Café and find the manufacturer’s website, track down the model of hardware you have and download the drivers for it. If you don’t have one already, get a USB stick. (AKA USB memory, USB flash drive, USB key) You can buy a 2GB one for around $20.