NetBloke.com - Nightly Nightmares
Publication Date: 23/05/2001
ISSN 1445-1360
Publication Date: 23/05/2001
ISSN 1445-1360
G'Day!
Have you ever been working away on your computer to have the dreaded 'blue screen of death' appear from nowhere? It normally happens to me just as I am about to finish off a task, just so I have the privilege of starting it all over again. For those of you who do not know what the 'blue screen of death' is, it is when the Microsoft operating system comings across a problem or error that it cannot handle, and hence chucks a wobbly and presents you with a blue screen that has some unidentifiable error on it. The outcome is normally a reboot of the computer and the loss of all the data you had not saved recently.
Well this past week I was particularly sick of the computer crashing. I blamed it on the unstable Windows 98 I was running on this HP Pavilion. At home in Australia the same thing had happened to me so I had upgraded my computer there to Windows 2000, so I did the same thing here.
It is an amazing transformation. The computer that I once wanted to give the boot for crashing all the time now runs flawlessly (I have had it turned on for over 3 days so far with no crash at all). It makes a world of difference to my stress levels, as I now have a computer to rely on again.
Some brief recommendations when updating your computer:
I have gone for a computer term this edition, as I realize a lot of the readers are very new to the world of computers.
In layman's terms the operating system is what interfaces between the computer hardware and computer software. Examples of common operating systems include; Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS.
Most of you are probably using Windows 95 or 98 I would imagine. I am pretty much sold on Windows 2000 myself and a technically minded friend of mine who is beta testing Windows XP says that XP is even better.
When it comes down to it if your computer is not causing you any problems and you are happy with it's performance, why swap?
Are you sick of receiving spam (unsolicited email) and junk mail in your mailbox? Well one way to stop getting more is to use a free web email account whenever you have to register your details on a web site.
Personally all I do is use my hotmail.com email account whenever I register on a site that I do not think I can trust to use my email address properly. Is till use my netbloke@netbloke.com address for reputable Web sites such as Amazon, and I use newsletters@netbloke.com when I subscribe to newsletters such as this one!
So if you want to set-up a free email account online I would recommend one of these two biggies:
www.hotmail.com
www.yahoo.com
This week I have added a Webcam of my little home office to the NetBloke.com Web site. You can see it here:
NetBloke's Webcam
So now you will all know what I really look like and what geeky computer stuff I get up to in the late hours of the night! I won't have it updating live all the time but I will try and update it when I am around and remember.
So do you want to set-up a Webcam yourself? Well to save you the time pain and misery that I went through researching and fiddling around with cameras and software I have featured the following Web sites this week to fulfill all your needs!
Firstly you need a camera. I have a cheap Logitech one in Australia but I am not impressed with its picture quality. Here in the USA I have A Kodak DVC325, and the quality of this one is leaps and bounds ahead of the Logitech. However it also cost twice as much! At around US$80 though I get my value for money out of it. I use it for video conferencing with friends, family and workmates back home using Microsoft Netmeeting.
Get Netmeeting from:
www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/
To handle the taking, creation and uploading of the pictures you see on my Web site I tried a few different programs. However the one I liked the most is called ConquerCam. It was the easiest to get up and running. For me at least it had everything I wanted. It is also only US$10 if you decide to keep using it past its trial period.
www.conquercam.com
You can find out about Kodak's range of Web cameras at:
www.kodak.com
An old,
I saw this joke the other day it is funny but due to it's violent nature, it is up to you if you read it or not!
A truck driver hauling a tractor-trailer load of computers stops in a bar for a beer. As he approaches the bar he sees a big sign on the door saying "NERDS NOT ALLOWED-ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!" He goes in and sits down. The bartender comes over to him, sniffs, says he smells kind of nerdy, and asks him what he does for a living. The truck driver says he drives a truck, and the smell is just from the computers he is hauling. The bartender says OK, truck drivers are not nerds, and serves him a beer. As he is sipping his beer, a skinny guy walks in with tape around his glasses, a pocket protector with twelve kinds of pens and pencils, and belt at least a foot too long. The bartender, without saying a word, pulls out a shotgun and blows the guy away. The truck driver asks him why he did that. The bartender said not to worry, the nerds are over-populating the Silicon Valley, and are in season now. You don't even need a license, he said. So the truck driver finishes his beer, gets back in his truck, and heads back onto the freeway. Suddenly he veers to avoid an accident, and the load shifts. The back door breaks open and computers spill out all over the freeway. He jumps out and sees a crowd already forming, grabbing up the computers. They are all engineers, accountants and programmers wearing the nerdiest clothes he has ever seen. He can't let them steal his whole load. So remembering what happened in the bar, he pulls out his gun and starts blasting away, felling several of them instantly. A highway patrol officer comes zooming up and jumps out of the car screaming at him to stop. The truck driver said, "What's wrong? I thought nerds were in season." "Well, sure." said the patrolman, "But you can't bait 'em."
