Dave's Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

All good things come to an end…  Fortunately, Virtual Dave isn’t one of them.  I’ve recently made the decision to drop my own remote assistance software in favor of using a new open-source VNC launcher called Gitso.  This launcher has a few benefits over the previous iterations of my older “Virtual Dave” software:

• Lightweight:  It’s written in Python and loads very fast.
• Simple:  Sometimes losing a couple “bells and whistles” is a good thing.
• Multiple platforms:  Gitso works on Windows, Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X.
• Active Development Pipeline:  A feature request I submitted was approved for the next version less than a half hour after I submitted it.
• Open-Source:  Free as in freedom.

There are a lot of features in the coming versions of this software I have been looking for in a VNC tool for a long time.  And who knows, I might learn a thing or two about programming in Python with this little tool.

In the previous post I mentioned Nine Inch Nails organizing a fund raiser to help Eric De La Cruz get a heart transplant.  They’re doing this by asking for large donations and in exchange they give you and a guest VIP access to any concert you want to attend.  I’m here writing this to let everyone know that my sister and I are now officially VIP attendees of the upcoming KC concert on Wednesday the 27th, and it’s an experience I’ll be telling people about for years.

Now most of you out there (or at least anyone who isn’t really into NIN) are probably saying, “Why would anyone spend that much money just to get backstage and gum it up with people they may never see or speak to again?”  Well… let me put it this way.  Imagine you could meet any single person in the whole world who you’ve wanted to meet for over a decade but couldn’t. Just think of your favorite actor/actress, or author, celebrity, musician, mad scientist perhaps… I don’t care who, just think of someone who you’ve always wanted to say, “Thank you.” to in person because that’s just how much of an influence they’ve had on you and you want them to know.  Then one day, you’re offered that one chance.  That’s kinda what this is like.  An opportunity to do something you’ll never forget for the rest of your life.

Besides, all the money is going towards a worthy cause.  I’ll get to honestly say that I met my favorite musician of all time (one of just a small handful of life long goals/dreams I have) and contribute towards saving a human life in the process.  And I’ll be proud about it for the rest of my life.  I imagine myself decades from now thinking back on the life I lived and appreciate such an experience more so than, say, the experience I’d probably get from spending that kind of money towards something completely material, like an expensive HDTV.  I couldn’t imagine myself retired years from now telling my grandkids about the day I bought a new HDTV and expect them to marvel at my totally boring story.

For me, the things that matter in life aren’t things (stuff) at all.  The things that matter in life are experiences, events, people, emotions, passion, romance,  ideas, adventures, thrills, challenges and also remembering that one of these days you’re gonna die.  Because if you do like most young people and tell yourself it’s too far away to bother thinking about it right now, you might start to procrastinate and regret not doing the things that would otherwise hold their value to you forever.

So, here’s to being ALIVE and happy to finally get to do something I’ve always wanted to do but never believed would ever occur.

Oh, one last thing.  THANKS DAD!  You’ve always been there if I needed a favor or help with about anything and that means the world to me.

In the words of Trent Reznor himself:

This is for something important. Eric De La Cruz is dying and needs a heart transplant. He keeps getting turned down for a transplant list because he’s on Nevada Medicaid, and there are no transplant centers in Nevada. We want to get involved and hopefully so do you, so we’re extending a hand. His sister Veronica (former Anchor and Internet Correspondent for CNN) has started a campaign to save his life.

Eric’s situation shines a bright light on a broken health care system, and his particular set of problems are being addressed on the political front, aiming for reform in addition to the need for immediate financial help to keep him alive TODAY. I think we can help with the latter.

Here’s what we’re offering – three options:

If you have a ticket to a NIN/JA show: if you donate $1,000 to this cause, we’ll invite you to come hang out with us before the NIN/JA show of your choice. You and a guest can watch soundcheck, eat dinner backstage with us, take pics / get autographs and watch the show from the side of the stage if you’d like.

If you donate $300, you and a friend can join us for soundcheck and a handshaking / hug session before doors open at the NIN/JA show of your choice.

If you do NOT have a ticket to a NIN/JA show: if you donate $1,200 to this cause, we’ll invite you to come hang out with us before the NIN/JA show of your choice and provide 2 tickets (best available). You and a guest can watch soundcheck, eat dinner backstage with us, take pics / get autographs and watch the show from the side of the stage if you’d like.

100% of the money collected from this will go directly to Eric’s fund.

I hope you’ll consider helping out with this.

Sincerely, Trent Reznor

Go here for more info. If I’m lucky and can find the money, I’ll get to meet my all time favorite musician AND help save a life.

Bob Church, the father of my girlfriend Kristin, passed away this afternoon at the age of 61.  For the last 10 months Bob has been in a long and trying fight with cancer.  I’ve written a decent bit here and there about the history of this here and you can find it by following my tag link for him to the left.  He went peacefully while surrounded by family and close friends.

Among his dying wishes was the request that he be cremated and instead of having a formal memorial service, those who knew him should join together for a sort of commemorative party/get-together.  That event will be this Saturday.  So if you knew Bob and have a way of getting to Topeka, you are invited to come and celebrate Bobs life and the memories he has left with us all.

It’s 3 a.m. on Sunday the 26th and I’m just wrapping up the final touches to several upgrades and changes to Prymal Rhythm’s Website.  First up on the list is a calendar girl contest.

All of these hot babes are great looking but it is up to you to select your six favorite as they compete for a chance to be in an official Prymal Rhythm calendar.  Putting together the actual contest involved a good amount of PHP work by my programmer/site developer.  We had to come up with a way to help prevent ballot stuffing and figured the best way to do that is to require registration with a username/password and an confirmed email account.  This is where the next upgrade came in:  a new Members Area and a Forum for fans to chat with each other through.

This is a surprise bonus feature the fans have not been made aware of yet.

The last thing we did was basicly give the entire website a face lift by wrapping every page in the theme that was selected for the forum so the entire site matches and looks really cool.  There’s still a little work left to do but I would have to say we’re about 80% done now.  It’s been quite an exercise.

In a stunning announcement made today by the most powerful commercial software giant on the planet, Microsofts’ Steve Ballmer announced  what some are calling a “shocking” new marketing strategy: The next version of Windows will be 100% open-source and cost zero dollars to all members of the public on its day of release late this year.  Ballmer said that this is only an amplification of another recent advertising project Microsoft created recently which is centered around criticizing the high prices of Apple’s Mac OS X, saying that Apple fans are being played as suckers by  “paying $500 more to get a logo.”

Since the founding of Microsoft by Bill Gates, who stepped down as CEO  effectively handing the reigns to Mr. Ballmer, the software company has refused to  release its source-code; the programing used to create their popular operating system.  Keeping it closed-source has been a strategy used by Microsoft to ensure they could maximize profits on sales of their product, but Steve Ballmer said he felt the time was right to go open source for a multitude of reasons.  “Not only did we feel like rubbing it in Apple’s face by removing the price tag from our product entirely, but we feel it’s time to get some help from the public on refining Windows.  Because let’s face it; they use Windows more than we do, so we might as well let them fix it themselves for a change.”

Ballmer went on to explain that with Microsofts’ closed-source model, the repair of bugs and security holes in their software is much more challenging.  “Our studies have shown that software developers and programmers actually become less productive in direct correlation to the amount of money you pay them for their work.  It’s gotten so bad that the shutdown menu in Vista took several months to create and design, and that’s pretty damned embarrassing if you ask me.”

Reactions to the unexpected change have been mostly positive to sarcastic.  Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical which develops and promotes their free Ubuntu Linux operating system, considered the change to be a little amusing.  “You know what they say:  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”  Apple CEO Steve Jobs responded to the move by boldly stating  “So what?!”  When asked if Apple would consider making a similar change in their software development model, he replied in a typical sales pitch: “It takes a lot of money to build computers as cool as ours.  Buy one,” he added with a crazed, hypnotic look in his eyes.  “You’ll LOVE it.”

The open-source version of Windows 7 was originally slated to be released late in 2009, but with the sudden change in development structure, Microsoft actually anticipates this date to be unusually ahead of schedule.  “Now that we’ve shaken our software development department down and replaced our laziest, most expensive programmers with dedicated Microsoft Windows fans who work for us out of sheer love for the brand, we anticipate faster development in the areas of security, stability and most importantly, system performance.”  Microsoft was also originally planning to release seven various editions of Windows 7 (Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate and Star Trek Collectors edition), but it has been deduced that by making the software 100% open-source, the user will be able to get any edition they want for free simply by selecting which edition they want during installation at no difference in cost.  “It’s a win win for everyone,” added Ballmer.

Also:  APRIL FOOLS.

I don’t normally pass along virus alerts because they are often outdated and obsolete, but this one is strait from my IBM inbox.  You may have heard about a virus that is set to strike on April 1st in the news recently.  It is called Conficker.C and you can read more about how it works by visiting these addresses:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker
http://mtc.sri.com/Conficker/addendumC/

As stated in the links above, the virus takes advantage of a buffer-overflow vulnerability of certain server services on Windows based machines.  Microsoft issued an update (MS08-067) for Windows 2000 SP4, XP SP2 & SP3, and Vista to patch this hole back in October of last year. So if you have installed all available Windows updates you should be fine and not need to worry.  It is highly recommended you install all available updates if you have not done so lately.  To force your PC to check for available updates, click Start>All Programs>Windows Update and follow the on-screen instructions.

If your computer is directly connected to the Internet it is advised that you have a quality software firewall installed and blocking unexpected inbound traffic.  A comparison of free firewall software can be found here:  http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-firewall.htm

In addition you should also have a quality anti-virus software solution in place.  Any of the following will suffice:

• CA Anti-Virus
• Symantec Anti-Virus
• F-Secure Anti-Virus
• Panda Anti-Virus
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus
• McAfee Anti-Virus
• BitDefender Anti-Virus

I personally recommend  AVG Free Edition

In summery:

• Be sure to apply all available updates for Microsoft Windows
• Ensure you have some form of firewall blocking unwanted network traffic
• Install a quality anti-virus solution

Now lets all have a happy April Fools day!

I decided to update my About page on my website to show off the new specs I bought recently.  People were starting to tell me that I looked like a 14 year old in the older picture, so it’s about time I updated things a tad bit.

You’ll notice the watch I’m wearing in the picture.  That was a gift from my girlfriend for Valentines Day.  It’s made by Fossil and is called a “Skeleton Watch” because you can see all the gears ticking away on the inside from both sides.  She picked this specific one out because a long time ago I told her about being five years old and dismantling a wind-up alarm clock so I could see how it worked, and taking it to Kindergarten class for show-and-tell.  I don’t know what it is about stuff like that, but ever since I was a kid I’ve always been the kind of person who wanted to understand how all things worked.  It’s one of the coolest and most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever gotten from anyone.

Not so long ago I was given a scanner/printer from a client of mine who had no use for it (thanks Fred).  I don’t have much use for a scanner so I gave it to my mom.  After getting it to work for her I showed her how to use the built-in scanner import utility included with Windows XP to scan things.  With it she scanned off a bunch of photos from old albums, most of which were filled with pictures of me and my siblings from when we were kids.  You get a sense of going back in time, you remember things you’ve forgotten, by viewing photographs that are as old as you are.  Wanna know what I looked like when I was a baby?  Well here you go!

Guess what.  I still have that exact teddy bear.  It was a gift from my dad… I believe for my first birthday (I’ll have to double-check that factoid).  Here it is sitting on top of my PC:

Now… there were of course a lot of other neat pictures of me as a child in that collection.  Like this striking photo that I didn’t know anything about until a few weeks ago:

It was taken by a local newspaper photographer… I can’t remember exactly why at the moment but it was just after I was born in the good old days of 1982.  My mother still has the original news paper clipping with caption that used this photo… I’ll have to get a copy of that sometime.

Then there are the cute action shots:

Reading Garfield

Fixing The TV

Jammin’

Breaking Child Labor Laws (And Makin’ Bank!)

There are too many pictures to show.  No, I don’t feel like posting the one of me sitting on Santa’s lap while wearing a boy scout uniform (I’m not making this up either).  As funny looking as it is, I can’t help but look at it and think to myself, “Wow, look at all that brainwashing in action!”  Bottom line is, this was an AWESOME Christmas gift!  Thanks mom!

I got an email today from an IT recruiter asking if I might be interested in either one of a couple of field tech positions. Both involved doing work on home PCs for people who had purchased extended warranty/service plans from retailers (Staples/Office Depot was mentioned). It sounded innocent enough.  The job descriptions were pretty good and all, but one major detail remained unknown: What does it pay?

So I shot a quick reply back from my phone: “What’s the pay range?”

Most everybody I’ve ever gotten a job offer from or who have posted job listings state in clear print what the job is going to pay, usually like this: “Pay rate is $11 ~ $14 an hour, based upon experience,” or, “Pay is exactly $17 an hour, 8 hours a day for 3 days only.”  So you can at least get a ball park idea of what you will get if you pursue the offer.

His reply back to me: “Can you give me a call or do you have a number I can reach you at.”

This set a red flag off. For one,  his original email to me said he found my website… apparently he overlooked the phone number that’s plastered all over it (if not the entire site). Two: He didn’t answer my question.  What’s wrong with putting a pay rate down in written reply? From where I’m siting there is a lot wrong with not making this clear from the beginning. An email (printed text in general) can be honored of as part of the contract agreement.  It could even be used against them in court of they didn’t hold to a promise made or high-balled their offer to entice me.  But an unrecorded phone call? Who knows what kind of BS they’d throw at me. I could just imagine it: “Yes the pay will probably be X dollars. But it’s not even up to me so we’ll have to wait and see.  We need you to submit your background check/W-9 paperwork first.”

After giving it some thought I decided to not call, but reply: “I appreciate your interest, but must respectfully decline. I am quite busy with other contracts as well as my own freelance work and feel that there would be a potential conflict of interest down the road. I am also suspicious about ********’s policy of not quoting pay ranges in writing.”

I’m pretty sure it was the right thing to do.  There is a good chance that the job they wanted to offer me came,  not with hourly based compensation, but salary based compensation.  Salary (in my observations) seems to end up being unfair to most people.  You often end up working more than you had expected to work and get little if any extra thanks for your efforts.  And if you complain about it management will likely tell you its your problem to deal with, not theirs (which wouldn’t be their reply if you were paid by the hour).

It would be different if this job involved fixing PCs in an office environment, where usage policies were enforced and virus frequency reduced.  But salary pay to fix an unlimited number of home PCs that are who knows how many miles away and infected with who knows what?  I doubt I’d end up getting a fair break.  I’m glad I turned this offer down.