In the throes of my video card-induced computer crashes last week, which happened as a deadline loomed, I had to abandon my Vista computer and work on an XP computer. XP is a great operating system - but going back to it after getting spoiled by some of Vista's features was difficult.

The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the XP computer was still running Office 2003, and I've gotten very used to Office 2007. I confess: I missed the ribbon. I know it's the most-hated feature of the new Office, but after working with it for nearly a year I really like it, and found it a pain to navigate through regular menus again.

What I missed most, though, were the little things. For instance, as a professional writer, I really appreciate the running word count that Word 2007 displays in the status bar. Having to click a button every time I wanted to calculate the current word count was just ... so 2003.

Something else that I really missed a lot was the picture preview feature in Outlook 2007. I had almost forgotten that when I wanted to view a graphic file attached to an email message in Outlook 2003, I had to actually open the picture in an image viewer. In Outlook 2007, you can right click the attachment file and select Preview, and see the picture right there in the email preview pane.

Another thing I missed in Word was the little pop-up formatting toolkit that appears when you highlight text. It makes it really convenient if you want to change the font size or color.

Except for the ribbon interface, many of the differences between the old and new Office programs are subtle, but using Office 2003 again made me really appreciate those little enhancements in Office 2007.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

After days of struggling with the "nvlddmkm has stopped responding" errors, blue screens and black screens all related to my nVidia cards, I finally admitted defeat. I took out the cards and installed a Diamond Radeon 1550 with 512MB memory, plugged in two of my monitors and was immediately back in business.

Not only do I have dual monitors working great again, but the colors are nicer, Windows loads faster and everything is generally "snappier." So I've ordered a second identical Diamond card from NewEgg (Fry's only had the one, and besides it costs $50 less at NE) and should be back to triple monitor status in a few days.

The nVidia problem is still truly mystifying, especially considering the large number of people who have had it. But I didn't have time to deal with it anymore; I had to get back to work. So this solution works for me.

And in fact, this is the first computer I've had with nVidia cards. I always used ATI on past machines, with no problems. This XPS came with the GeForce from Dell.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

It all started last week, with some odd display behavior in Vista. Then on Friday, I found myself with a completely black screen. After a reboot, I had lost the display on both of my secondary monitors. Then I started getting the error message "nvlddmkm has stopped responding and has recovered." This happened over and over, with the computer freezing up so that I couldn't do anything at all.

Nvlddmkm is the nVidia graphics driver. I have two GeForce video cards on my computer, a 5200 and a 7900, running a total of three monitors. This setup has worked fine for about seven months. Then suddenly, this problem.

My first thought was that auto updates had installed a new driver that my machine didn't like. I tried Last Known Good, as well as rolling back the drivers. No joy, same problem. I tried uninstalling the drivers and installing various other versions of nVidia drivers. The trouble progressed (or regressed) so that now I couldn't even boot into Windows; I got a STOP error 0x00000124 before startup.

Research on the web showed that I was not alone in this problem - there were dozens of messages on discussion forums describing the same thing:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=25381 

There were also dozens of solutions given, from removing Windows Dreamscene to disabling Defender to BIOS configuration adjustments to flashing the BIOS. I tried most of them, to no avail. I tried unplugging the monitor from one of the cards and using only one, trying to use just two monitors. That worked for a while, until after a few hours, I got the black screen again and was back to the same cycle of reboot/blue screen. I tried a system restore point and a full PC restore from the image backup, and even installing a new instance of Vista on a different partition, but as soon as I tried to enable a second monitor, the nvlddmkm message started popping up there, too.

Restoring Windows from the image backup - cool feature, but didn't solve the problem.

Throughout all this, I could always boot into Safe Mode with no problem. And if I uninstalled the video drivers completely, I could boot into Vista normally - but when I got there, Windows detected and reinstalled drivers for the video cards and next time I rebooted, I was back to the same black screen or blue screen. I could disable the drivers and boot into Windows normally without them being reinstalled, but without the nVidia drivers I only have one monitor and no Aero.

I didn't pay $2200 for this Dell XPS supercomputer to be limited to a single monitor and non-Aero interface. In fact, I specifically bought it to solve my multiple monitor problem because it was one of few systems that had two 16x PCI-E slots so I could install both cards.

At this point, after struggling for several days to make these cards (or at least one of them) work again with the nVidia drivers, I'm about to buy a pair of ATI cards and see if that solves the problem. Seems everyone who was having this problem was using nVidia cards/drivers so I'm hoping ATI will work better. I really hate to have to spend $300+ on new video cards, when the old ones worked fine for months, but I don't know what else to try.

If anyone who's reading this knows a solution to this problem, please write to me at the email address below. And if/when I find a solution, I will post it here so maybe others won't have to go through all the frustration I've been through this last week.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

We all know it's inevitable: biometrics is the authentication method of the future (Demolition Man - one of my all-time favorite movies - taught me that, along with the dangers that go with it; who could ever forget that scene with the eyeball?).

But when I bought my Sony TX ultra compact laptop with Vista, the biometric logon feature wasn't something I particularly cared about. However, I went ahead and set it up just to see if it worked.

It did, and to my surprise I've found it to be a real convenience. Especially with a laptop, it's important to lock the computer at times, but typing in your password to unlock it can be a pain. I found that just swiping my finger across the built-in scanner is whole lot easier, especially if I'm in a position (as I sometimes am with the laptop, almost never with the desktop computer) where I don't have both hands free to type.

 
Biometric logon successful!

You can enroll multiple fingers, which is a good thing. I find that often the scanner doesn't recognize my right index finger, but almost always recognizes my right middle finger on the first swipe (is there a deep hidden meaning there?).

At any rate, I use it all the time now, and it's a nice little bonus feature that I'm coming to like more and more. It doesn't make the computer more secure, since you can still type the password to log on instead of using the fingerprint scanner. But it does make logging on a little more convenient. Besides, the people around you at conferences think you're really cool when you swipe your finger instead of typing a password.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

This week has been very busy, with decidedly non-technical things. If you want to know what I've been doing, see the July 14th through 19th posts on my personal blog site at http://lakerayhubbardnet.spaces.live.com.

I'll be back to posting here in the next day or two.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Looks as if one of the major reasons not to buy an iPhone may be getting fixed more quickly than expected. A third party company, Synchronia PLC, has created a mobile gateway that supports over the air synchronization with Exchange for iPhone users. Read more about it here:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2158215,00.asp 

The iPhone's lack of OTA synch with Exchange was a big deal breaker for me. We'll be interested to see how well this and similar products work and what they end up costing.

Now if only Apple will come out with a v2 that has a user removable battery and allow wireless providers other than Cingular to offer it, I might start to seriously consider it.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

As an author who published books, hundreds of articles per year, and a newsletter every week, I get lots of email from readers. Most of them are extremely nice and have great questions or useful comments and I love hearing from them. I've even made some long-time friends this way.

Sometimes, though, I really wonder about people. I regularly get mail from readers who tell me I shouldn't be expressing my opinion - in my editorials. Folks, that's what editorials are. WXPnews has an editorial section (Editor's Corner) where, each week, I provide my views on tech-related topics. If you don't like opinions, please skip that section. The rest of the newsletter is news and technical tips. But the editorial section will almost always contain opinions.

Some readers don't mind opinions, as long as those opinions agree with their own. But if I express one that doesn't, they're all over me. I try to stay away from most partisan political discussions in the newsletter, even in the editorial. I'll never endorse candidates there, although I do occasionally poke fun at politicians on both sides of the aisle. Do my general philosophies and beliefs come through now and then? Sure they do. But I certainly don't insist that you agree with them, so please don't insist that I agree with yours.

I've even been slammed for using the "wrong" sources for my news article. Once I got an extremely hateful message from a reader for providing a link to a tech (completely non-political) article on the foxnews.com web site. The reader accused me of "supporting a right wing news organization." The funny thing was that, in that same issue, I had a link to a tech article on the CNN.com web site, and the reader didn't even seem to notice that I was simultaneously supporting a left wing news organization.

Last week, a reader wrote that he was highly disappointed in me for including advertising in the newsletter and would be dropping his subscription if it continued. Never mind that WXPnews has always been advertising-supported. The newsletter is, after all, free. I'm a professional writer; that means that's the way I support my family. I don't expect you to do your job for no pay; please don't expect me to. I think most readers agree that having ads in the newsletter is better than having to pay to read it.

Then there are all those who write to say "I wrote to you twice and you never answered!!!" That's despite the fact that I've repeatedly noted in the newsletter that I cannot possibly answer all (or even half) of the reader mail. I used to have a strict policy of never sending private replies. Now I do answer anywhere from ten to twenty privately each week, but that still leaves literally hundreds that have to go unanswered. I have a certain amount of time set aside for my newsletter work and the rest of the week, I have other jobs I have to do. I wish I could answer everybody, but even if I were paid a full time wage to do this and could devote 40 hours a week to it, I wouldn't be able to do it because I get as many as 500 or more messages from readers every day, and that doesn't include the spam.

And then when I do answer, I often find myself encountering an "anti-spam" system that notifies me that my message won't go through to the person's mailbox unless I first go to a web site and identify myself there. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

But really, these annoying messages make up a very small percentage of my total mail. And the good mail makes it well worth the trouble of wading through them. So ... keep those cards and letters coming (but not the ten thousand spam "postcards from a family member" that I've been getting in my mailbox lately).

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Recently a friend of mine emailed me, saying, "I'd like to try Vista. Can you make me a copy?"

I responded that well, no, actually I couldn't, since that would be an illegal violation of the licensing agreement. I figured that would be the end of it.

I figured wrong. She wrote back, her tone a little miffed. "I didn't think it would be too much trouble for you to make me a copy. I can't really afford to pay $200 or whatever it costs."

She works in a hospital. I wondered how she'd feel if I told her, "I'd like to try some Demerol. Would you mind stealing me a couple of bottles? I really can't afford to pay for it."

I'm sure she would be aghast. She'd tell me that it was illegal, that she could get in all sorts of trouble for doing that, that she could lose her job, that her career could be destroyed, that she could go to jail, that it was incredibly selfish of me to ask her to do such a thing.

Well, duh. I'm an MVP and do contract work for Microsoft. I don't think they would be any happier about me illegally giving away their software than her hospital administrators would be about her illegally giving me their drugs. I could lose my job, too (and software companies pay me a lot more than the hospital pays her). My career could be destroyed, too. Maybe it's not likely, but I could even face criminal charges for software piracy. But she thinks nothing of asking me to do her this small favor.

Seems like a lot of the people I know, even some police officers, see digital products such as software and music as fair game and believe that the usual rules don't apply. Some argue that bits and bytes are "information" and that information should be free (but they would arrest someone for stealing a book from a bookstore, or sneaking into a corporate building and photocopying trade secrets). Some argue that because, when you copy a program or song, you don't deprive the original owner of it and so it can't really be theft. Some don't have any argument at all, other than the old standby: "everybody else does it."

I guess a lot of the attitude comes from an antipathy toward big software vendors and big record companies, who are seen as making "too much" money and thus not needing the extra income. Many have been treated badly by corporations and see taking their products without paying as a way of getting back at them. For others, it's just a matter of opportunity: if it's there and it's free and the chance of getting caught is low, they seize the moment.

And now and then, I encounter someone who offers the amazing opinion that software piracy is okay because no one should own anything, everything should be for the use of everyone and those who don't share - rather than those who steal - are the real "bad guys." These are the true socialists among us, and my fear is that the popularity of software socialism is a slippery slope that will spread to that sort of thinking about other, more tangible property.

This, just as much as the moral values instilled in me by my parents and the fear of legal repercussions, is why I can't and won't make you a copy of Vista, even if we are friends. And I won't ask you to swipe me anything from the drug cabinet, either.

And now I'd better go don my flame-resistant suit. I have a feeling I'm going to hear from a lot of software socialists soon.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Interesting story in today's news: Sprint Nextel has dumped 1000 or so customers because they call customer service too much.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288635,00.html

Wow. And here they probably thought that was what customer service was for. Now I have to admit that calling 25 times per month seems a bit excessive (do these people not have jobs, families, lives? Given the typical customer service experience that involves sitting on hold for 20 minutes and being shuffled around from one tech to another, how do they have time to call that often?). Are they just lonely, or are Sprint's products and/or service really that bad?

It does bring up some interesting issues. Were any of them warned that they would lose their service if they continued calling so often? Of course, I'm sure the service contract gives the company - along with your first-born child and title to your home - the right to drop you anytime they please for any reason they deem fit.

I wonder if I could convince my carrier (Verizon) to give me a discount each month since I never call customer service ... . Fat chance. This would be a great PR opportunity for other cellular companies, though. I can see the commercials now: "Come to the company that doesn't cut you off for calling us."

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

So, now that I have a digicam that takes good movie footage, the next logical step is to use video editing software to make the movies better. So I decided to check out Vista's Movie Maker application, something I haven't paid much attention to in all the time I've been using Vista (since early betas).

I found it to be a pretty user friendly program. In fact, it was almost too friendly; I spent time trying to figure out how to do various things, such as adding a transition, when the answer was right in front of my face: you just drag the one you want to the location you want to play it. Simple as that.

For a free app, it has a pretty decent array of features. You can, of course, cut your movie clips and combine them, and you can also add still photos and audio or music, or overlay narration on top of the production.  Here's a look at the interface:

 
Vista's Movie Maker interface

I especially liked the variety of special effects. You can fade in and out to black or white, get a zoom effect, produce an "aged film" look, cycle through different hues, rotate the picture, pan, posterize, slow down and speed up the action, spin the picture 360 degrees, create ripple, warp and watercolor effects, and more. Some of these effects and transitions are new (there are about twenty more effects than in the XP version of Movie Maker).

There are also numerous transitions that you can insert between frames or clips (think PowerPoint slide transitions), animated titles, scrolling credits and other professional looking effects. Very cool.

Some enhancements over the XP version include the ability to see your preview at higher resolution (in XP you were limited to 320x240) and support for Media Center's DVR-MS format. You can also optimize your movies for either the standard 4:3 or widescreen aspect ratio. In Vista Home Premium and Ultimate editions, you also get support for high def (HD) formats.

Movie Maker will output your movie project directly to Vista's built-in DVD Maker program, making it easier to burn the movie to DVD. And the interface is still familiar to users of the XP version, so don't worry about a learning curve.

Now, granted, it's a pretty basic program. But for lots of people making home movies, it'll do. My biggest gripe is that it doesn't support the .MOV (QuickTime) format. Yeah, I know Apple and Microsoft are arch rivals, but many digital cameras (including mine) record movies in .MOV and it's a pain to have to convert them (not to mention that every converter I've tried results in a loss of quality. I had high hopes for RadTools Bink Converter, but it doesn't convert to WMV and the AVIs it created won't play on Windows Media Player; apparently an unsupported codec was used). And of course, iMovie (Apple's editor) won't run on Windows.

Consequently, much as I liked Movie Maker, I'm now looking for a more sophisticated movie editing program for Windows, preferably one that will also convert .MOV to .AVI or .WMV. If you have a suggestion, let me know. I'll report back as I make more progress.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

It all started because I bought a cool little Casio pocket camera last week. I already had a cool little Casio, actually - Tom brought it home to me back before Christmas. I liked the size (ultra compact, not much bigger in surface area than a credit card and about 3/4 of an inch thick) but I have to admit it; I'm a bit of a camera snob.

I have been since way back in the 70s, when I got my first Nikon F SLR and started doing semi-professional photography, shooting weddings and portraits and nature scenes and such. Graduating to a medium format camera only made me more of a snob. Then, I got into other things and for a long time, didn't do much photo-taking. But I was still a camera snob, turned up my nose at anything that didn't say "Nikon" or "Leica" or "Hasselblad" on the front. Grudgingly admitted that some folks could take good pictures with Canons and Minoltas. Secretly sneered at those who sported Kodaks and other low-end snapshooters.

By the time I got interested again, everything had changed. Film had been replaced by flash memory cards and a confusing array of digital cameras were available. Being the camera snob that I am, I immediately bought a Nikon. First I got a mid-priced, semi compact Coolpix (4100) for $400, then later another higher end and more expensive Coolpix (8700) for a little over $700. I found that I used the first, cheaper one more than the "better" one and that it was easier to use and in general, took better photos - although for a few special situations I did appreciate being able to do more manual settings on the 8700, if I could figure out how.

Nikon makes wonderful optics, but their computer software design skills leave something to be desired. The menus are difficult to maneuver, the interface isn't very friendly and the controls are not intuitive. Nonetheless, I thought maybe the problem was that I needed to upgrade to a DSLR, and lately I had been seriously considering spending another $1500 or so on a Nikon D40x and 18-200mm lens.

Meanwhile, the camera I was using most of the time to actually take photos was the cheap little Casio EX-Z60 ($229). I could slip it into a pocket and take it anywhere and everywhere. And it took decent quality "point and click" snapshots, which was most of what I was doing now.

Then a friend pointed me toward Ken Rockwell's photography web site (www.kenrockwell.com) and, while browsing through it, I was reminded of a great truth of photography: high priced cameras don't make you a great photographer. Then I came across this page singing the praises of his Casio: http://www.kenrockwell.com/casio/exz850.htm

As I read about all the things it would do and how it has advanced features that you don't find on much more expensive digicams, I started to look at my own Casio with a little more respect. I had never really explored all its settings and menus when I got, assuming that it had only basic functions. In fact, I had complained more than once that you couldn't turn the flash off - but Ken said his Casio had four different flash modes.

I dug out the manual and went through it page by page. And discovered some amazing capabilities for such a tiny and inexpensive device. Not only could I turn the flash off or set it to a softer setting or use it as fill flash, I could do many settings manually, adjust exposure compensation, and there was even a shade white balance setting. And there's a really nifty setting that lets you take a photo of a business card or document or whiteboard at an angle and then it automatically does keystone correction to make the picture look as though you took it straight on.

Well, I messed with my little camera for a couple of weeks with all this newfound knowledge and fell in love with it. But there were still a few things missing. The most important, to me, was a better zoom. It only had 3x optical, and I like to take pictures of the birds in my yard, the horses at the racetrack and other somewhat distant subjects. I also wanted shutter and aperture priority AE options.

So I started researching and that's when I found a new model, the Casio EX-V7. It was only $299 and had all those things I wanted and more - faster max shutter speed, higher max ISO setting and a few other enhancements, along with all the same great features I had just discovered on my EX-Z60.

I started to order it from Amazon at $291, but wanted to see it in person, see if it was still as compact, so I trekked down to my local Circuit City and found it there on sale for even less. It was, indeed, almost as small as the other one, only a smidgeon thicker. I snatched it up and brought it home and have been playing with it this week - and I'm pleased.

Camera collection: EX-V7 and two Nikon Coolpixes

You can see in the photo (which obviously was not taken by the new camera) that it's more compact than either Nikon. The second photo shows it beside its older but little brother, the EX-Z60. It's only a fraction of an inch thicker.

 
Casios side-by-side (EX-V7 on the left)

 
The new guy is thicker, but not by much

Although several reviewers on Amazon and other sites gave it five star ratings, there were a few who expressed dissatisfaction with the photo quality, the movie quality and the charging cradle. My conclusion is that they must have either gotten defective cameras or don't know how to use it properly, because I found the photo quality quite good and was even more impressed with the movie quality. I've tried the movie making feature on digital cameras before and was always disappointed, but the QuickTime movies I've made with this one have been excellent. Unlike with many of the others, you aren't limited to a 30 second movie; you start filming by pressing the shutter button and can continue as long as you have memory space. I put a 4 GB SD card in it and am having fun filling it.

I was prepared to dislike the cradle, though. I generally don't like such contraptions; I fight daily with the charging cradle for my Samsung i730 Pocket PC phone. But I found the camera's cradle to work well and I really don't have any complaints about it.

Photo of my rosebush (through a window) taken with the EX-V7

All in all, I'm very pleased with my purchase and tomorrow I'll tell you more details about my movie making adventures.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Once again, everybody's talking about the iPhone. Reminds me of the way it was when Apple showed the first prototype and everyone went nuts. Now people are actually getting their hands on working models of the thing and everyone's going nuts again. And the praises - and complaints - are rolling in.

Here's a rundown of some initial observations:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/26/iphone-facts-from-the-first-reviews/

So now they're saying that it does support Exchange, "in some capacity." I perked up my ears at that. The reported lack of Exchange support was the number one deal-breaker for me. It still remains to be seen exactly what that "capacity" may be but it is cause for hope.

I do love the way it looks. That huge, gorgeous screen sorely tests my loyalty to Windows Mobile. And I don't really give a flip about some of the things that others are whining about, such as no text messaging and the inability to set MP3s as ringtones (although the latter feature would be nice). I could even live with the inability to copy and paste, I guess. I don't remember the last time I copied and pasted anything on my WM phone.

But ... after 300 or so charges, you have to send your phone back to Apple to get the battery replaced? And be without your cell phone for however long that takes? No way, José, not when I can buy a new battery for my Samsung i730, have multiple batteries and switch them out, etc. That is a huge drawback.

And that, along with Apple's decision to make AT&T the only provider for its phone, at least for now, is why I won't be buying an iPhone any time soon. Give me a removable battery and let me use it with Verizon's network and I'll plop down my $600 in a minute. Well, maybe. There's also the "lock in" factor. See http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/desktop_mobile/my_iphone_verdict.html for more on that.

I do suspect at least one of these problems (the battery) will be addressed in the next version. I can't imagine that people won't be screaming about having to send their entire phone in to get the battery replaced. Unless you just have to be on the cutting edge and you "need" to be an early adopter for the ego factor, I'd hold off on buying one. I suspect v2 will be both better and cheaper. Will I buy one then? We'll see.

Mainly, I'm hoping the makers of Windows Mobile devices will take a few hints from the iPhone and build me a WM phone with all the advantages (large touch screen, no physical keyboard, sleek form factor) and none of the disadvantages. Apple claims to have been first with the graphical PC interface and copied by everyone else (even though they actually "borrowed" it from Xerox/PARC before Microsoft "borrowed" it from them). They say the  Zune and other MP3 players were rip-offs of their iPod. Let's hope the copy-cat factor kicks in for this phone, too.

deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."