I've been popup free for ages - first using third party blockers and then more recently thanks to IE's built-in popup filter. But starting a week or two ago, the popups mysteriously returned.

My first thought was that IE's popup blocker had inadvertently been disabled, but when I checked, it was turned on. So why am I suddenly getting all these annoying popups, especially from news sites (my local DallasNews.com site, CNN.com and others)? It's not making me happy.

Giving past experiences, I'm wondering if some update or another broke the popup filter. Or maybe the popup authors are just getting smarter and finding a way around it. Either way, Microsoft, please do something about it soon.

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER, MCSE, MVP

This morning, as always, first thing I did when I sat down at the computer was check my mail - or try to. Outlook was acting finicky and there was a lot of spam (more than usual) in my inbox, so I thought maybe the Outlook on my other machine - which runs in cache mode and handles my junk mail filtering for my Exchange account so I won't have to run cache mode and slow things down on my primary machine - might be closed. That happens when the other machine reboots and Outlook doesn't open back up.

I used Remote Desktop to check the other machine (it lives upstairs in one of the server rooms) but Outlook was alive and well on it, and I noticed there were messages on it that hadn't been downloaded to my primary. So I thought I'd just restart Outlook on the primary. That's been known to fix all manner of evil. I exited and then clicked the icon to reopen it, but nothing happened.

So I opened Task Manager and went into the processes tab and sure enough, there were TWO Outlook.exe processes there. I killed them both, tried to reopen Outlook again, and this time got a message saying "To continue accessing messages with Outlook, you MUST install the latest version of Outlook Connector."

What's up with that? The Connector is only supposed to be used for connecting to my Hotmail account. Which never has worked on Outlook 2007. But it would be nice if it did work, so I reluctantly tell it to go ahead. I figure I'll work on other stuff while that's going on. Unfortunately, what I was going to work on was a Word document, and the Outlook Connector Installer insisted that I close Word (and also Windows Mobile Device host sync) in order to proceed.

The installation process was relatively painless and Outlook opened and worked fine (and my missing messages showed up) after the installation, but why the insistence that I must install the new version to continue using my Outlook? Surely they meant if I wanted to continue using Outlook Connector (to connect to the Hotmail account)? Anyway, all's well that ends well.

And now Hotmail works on Outlook, which it didn't do before. For once, an update story with a happy ending!

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER, MCSE, MVP
deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."

Remember the 1993 movie Demolitan Man, with its satirical view of a dystopian future where all restaurants are Taco Bell and bad language resuts in  automated fines for violations of the Verbal Morality Statutes? It was a great movie, a funny movie, because it depicted a Brave New World we couldn't imagine ever actually existing.

But that was then, and this is now. And in many ways, we're a lot closer to the police state that flumoxed lead character John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone) than we might have ever imagined. And just like Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), most folks today don't even mind.

We're not quite at the point yet where computer generated citations pop out of machines whenever we break a rule, but most cities now have red light cameras at intersections, most stores have surveillance cams watching your every move, and many cities are now putting Big Brother to work full time on the public streets. Britain, of course, is way ahead of the pack; over there you can't go much of anywhere in public without making an appearance on Candid Camera. But the U.S. is doing its darnedest to catch up.

We still have a variety of culinary choices (thank goodness) but it's looking more and more as if, pretty soon, all banks will be Bank of America. And with biometric door locks and computer authentication systems becoming increasingly popular, it's probably only a matter of time before a Simon Phoenix/Wesley Snipes wannabe emulates that character's grisley method of hacking (literally) in.

One of the big jokes of the movie: the idea of Arnold Schwartzenegger being elected president. Today he's governor of one of our most populous states and there has been serious talk about amending the Constitution to allow him (and others not born here) to run for the nation's highest office.

Human nature and biology being what it is, I'm not sure Americans will ever completely give up the "old fashioned" way of having sex, but according to reports, a growing segment of the population is at least semi-celibate, with some turning to so-called cybersex as the safest sex of all. And given some of what passes for music today, those old commercial jingles just might have a shot at hitting the tops of the charts.

We're not quite there yet, but then the movie was set in 2032 so we still have a few years to get there. Based on how much our society has changed in the fourteen years since the movie's release, it's not hard to imagine that we'll have surpassed its tongue-in-cheek predictions by then.

We do, indeed, live in interesting times.

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER, MCSE, MVP
deb@shinder.net  www.debshinder.com

A few weeks ago, a lady in an SUV backed into my beloved Saturn Ion and banged it up a bit. The damage wasn't horrible: my driver's side mirror took most of the brunt. It was crushed back into my car door and window, rendering the power window incapable of going up and down. She deposited a good amount of her white paint on my front panel, and the "dent resistant" door panel was a little, well, dented.

Her insurance assumed liability and paid for the fixes. But being without my car presented the opportunity and motivation to do something I'd been thinking about for the past several months anyway: buy a brand new Saturn. Normally I wouldn't have. My 2004 Ion had only 23,000 miles on it and I liked it. But there were a couple of reasons to get a new one. Saturn is stopping production of the Ion and 2007 is the last model year, so if I ever wanted to have a brand new one again, I had to do it now.

When I bought the 2004, I got a fantastic deal on it, but it came with one catch: the color. The car is green. That's not awful, but it's not really what I wanted. This was an opportunity to get a silver, gray or black vehicle I could love even more (I know it's not easy being green).

Most importantly, though, my son's car (a 1999 Saturn SC-1) had well over 100,000 miles on it and his air conditioner compressor had gone out. He would love to have my "old" car, green or not. So I'd been toying with the idea of doing the hand-me-down thing. The wreck just gave me a good excuse.

I trekked up to the Saturn dealership where they still remember me and where I don't have to fight with them for five hours and threaten to walk out in order to convince them to take a check for the full amount rather than financing (We went through that ordeal with Ford a while back). After looking at several, I picked a Storm Gray Ion 3 with lots of bells and whistles, traded in Kris's SC-1, and had a new car that's not green.

So what's the technology part, you're probably wondering by now? Well, the new car came with something I've never had before: OnStar. I never much wanted it, and would not have paid extra for it, but it comes with a year of service so I figured I'd give it a try. It even comes with 30 minutes of free cell phone service so you can try out that feature.

To my surprise, I was impressed. Making or answering a call is as easy as hitting a button on the rear view mirror (speaking of mirror, it also has a very handy digital compass and temperature gauge built in). The call quality is excellent. It certainly beats fumbling with the cell phone - or more often, pulling off the road to make or take a call. With voice recognition technology, it really is hands free.

There are two ways you can use the OnStar phone. You can buy minutes from OnStar, or you can set it up with your Verizon Wireless account so that your vehicle comes another phone on your family plan and shares your Verizon minutes. Since we currently have a family plan that gives us 700 minutes per month, and we've never used more than 300, that would work. Adding the vehicle costs $9.99/month (plus taxes and fees that bring it to around $15). Not bad.

But there's also another option, which I may be checking out, and that's seeing if I can find a Bluetooth hands-free system that will pair with my existing cell phone. That would cost nothing per month, just the initial cost of the device. But do they have the wonderful sound quality of the OnStar phone? That's what I need to find out.

Today's Dallas Morning News announces that Oncor, which owns the power lines of TXU Electric in North Texas (including the Dallas - Fort Worth area) is in the process of installing a broad base of so-called "smart meters," which is the first step in offering broadband Internet services that use the electric company's lines to deliver IP networking service.

So far, over 60,000 of the meters have been installed, with plans to have 130,000 done by the end of the year and 300,000 by 2011. The bad news is that you will likely get the new meters whether you want them or not, and the costs will likely be passed on to consumers on their electricity bills. Grrr.

On the other hand, BPL could eventually make it possible to get broadband Internet services to folks in areas that aren't served by cable Internet or DSL.

Read more about the N. Texas project here:

Oncor's "smart meters" kicking off BPL system

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER, MCSE, MVP
deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com

If you've been wondering where I've been, well hey, so have I. It's been an extraordinarily busy time with no time for blogging. After several years of having the program director at Eastfield College begging me to come back and teach a class, I gave in and have been in the classroom this last week. The week before that was spent prepping - making slideshow presentations, creating group and individual exercises, writing pop quizzes and preparing handouts. And all for a fraction of the pay that I get for a lot less work doing tech writing and consulting.

At least I will have much more appreciation for my "regular" job - staying home, writing - than did I before. The good news is that it's a short class and will be over in another week.

And I'm enjoying being back in the classroom. This is a great group of students and I'll miss them when I'm finished.

DEBRA LITTLEJOHN SHINDER, MCSE, MVP
deb@shinder.net     www.debshinder.com
"Never enter a battle of wits unarmed."