Archive for the ‘Computers’ Category
Are you as sick as I am about all of these computer companies who insist on convincing or coercing every person in this country to use "The Cloud"? You can’t seem to buy software of any kind without that gentle shove by the company to convince you to place all of your personal writings, business writings, financials or anything else you can a think of on their version of "The Cloud".
Is anyone on this earth unaware of the risks we take just by being on the Internet. Viruses appear without notice almost every day or so we’re told by McAfee. Hackers are constantly breaking into those so-called secure sites and making the lives of us poor morons miserable. They’re costing us a lot of money each year to try and protect ourselves and it seems no matter what big companies do, they can’t protect themselves and our most private information.
Three times in the last few years I’ve been forced to change my credit and debit cards because someone was buying music or other things with my card numbers in Paris, France, Cleveland, Ohio and Montreal, Canada. I have those expert security specialists at Home Depot, Hannaford Foods, and Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield for making my information available to every hacker and thief who has a computer. I’m easily paying more than $200.00 a year for virus protection of my home computers and even a monthly charge for my freaking telephone. Do you see where I’m going with this?
Yesterday I was taken by surprise when Microsoft notified me via Facebook that they were making the MS Word program available for free to users of the IPad. I was thrilled because I’ve been loyal to Microsoft for decades. It’s only within the last year or so that I’m becoming more and more disappointed with them. After the X-Box One fiasco that make the device incompatible with a couple of decades of game software I’d already purchased, that was Strike One. Strike Two was my purchase of a MS Surface tablet. It crashed within a week of the purchase and with no help from their Tech Support took me a month to figure out how to reset it. Of course I lost all of my information on it as well.
Strike Three is this App which might be free but has a lot of strings attached. If you create any documents of any kind you’re forced to save them on the MS “Cloud” called “OneDrive”. There is no option that will allow you to save them just to your tablet. In my opinion it’s those kind of strong-arm tactics that could get me to walk away from MS entirely. Oh and by the way, you can take your Office 365 program and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
Everyone knows and worries about Google becoming too intrusive when they save every piece of information about us they can get. I understand now they have access to and save information on virtually every website we visit on the web. People are concerned about Muslim terrorists but compared with Google they’re inconsequential.
I took steps this year to install my own “Cloud” in my home with no available access from the net. All of my information and backups are now stored safely out of reach of the online thieves and hackers and controlled only by me.
So here’s my final thought for Microsoft. It’s time to get your collective heads out of your collective asses and get back to being the company we’ve all come to know and trust over the years. Bring Bill Gates back if you must and maybe he can stop you from following down that road right behind Google.
Since you’ve used up your three strikes, I just deleted your free Word App from my IPad. I never thought I’d see the day when Microsoft wasn’t leading the technology revolution by taking it in new and exciting directions instead of following along behind others like a lap dog.
You would think I’d know better by now after all of the computer and networking fiasco’s I’ve had in recent months, but oh no, I just keep kicking the hornets nest over and over again.
I’ve written in the past about the robbery that took place here almost two years ago. If you’ve never been victimized by a home break-in it’s hard to explain just how paranoid you instantly become. Every time you leave your home you wonder if the criminals will return to take the rest of your belongings.
I took all of the normal precautions at the time with lock changes, deadbolts, metal doors, and padlocks on just about everything you can think of. It hasn’t made me feel the least bit protected. Today was the day when we purchased a rather sophisticated alarm system that can easily be expanded to include everything. It’s the first step in the creation of a “Smart House” which unfortunately requires a hookup directly into my home network and my internet feed.
Nothing is easy to install no matter what they tell you. It may be easy for the manufacturers but the guys that write their user manuals are idiots. Their one hour installation is now in it’s seventh hour due to faulty video cameras and the lack of a competent translator to read their instructions.
At last I have it in, operating and tested. All except for the two video cameras which were faulty and will soon be replaced. I now have door contacts, motion detectors, thermostats, sirens, and range extenders. All I need now is a wide and deep moat filled with hungry alligators and possibly a machine gun nest on the roof. If any intruders can get over the moat, past the alligators, through my dead bolts, and alarm sirens I guess I’ll just have to shoot them.
I feel safer already.
I’m relaxing this morning for a number of reasons. This is the only time of the day I can really settle back and watch some NASA TV without interruptions of any kind. I always try to keep current with what they’re doing especially with the upcoming launch of this country’s next generation of space vehicle, the Orion, happening within the next three weeks. This unmanned first flight is the next step to seeing people actually visiting nearby asteroids and then on to Mars in a few years. For me it’s something that’s pretty damn exciting since I’ve been a huge space nerd for my entire life and never thought I’d live to see some of the things I’ve seen in the last few years. It also relaxes me like nothing else seems to do (do not include sex in that thought).
It’s also the time of day where I usually write my blog postings without phone calls and constant conversational interruptions. Most of my recent weeks have been a steady diet of all things computer. I posted a few weeks ago about the disaster that was my attempt to upgrade my home wireless network. After a great deal of time and effort I finally accomplished what I set out to do. Unfortunately all of those efforts were just the first and most important step in my much larger project of creating and installing my own personal Cloud system. It required a great deal of research to find the proper equipment and software as well as the training I needed to do it myself. As of this morning I’m just hours away from the completion of that project and I’m feeling damn good about it.
One of the things that made the project so easy (a relative term) was a device called the My Cloud. It’s a Western Digital product that attaches to a home network and provides a storage area for any and all devices included in that network. It sounds like a simple matter but it is anything but. Not only does it connect all of my computers, laptops, IPads, Android tablets, smart phones and printers together, it permits me to access the network with any of my wireless devices from anywhere I can find a Wi-Fi connection. We can upload photographs and videos from our cell phone and IPad cameras from just about anywhere. Everything is heavily encrypted and virus protected with layers of passwords and firewalls making access possible only by previously approved people. Unlike most commercial Cloud ventures from major computer entities, my cloud cannot be accessed by the government without my consent.
This all started a few years ago when our home was burglarized. Part of that "smash and grab" crime involved the theft of my better-half’s laptop. We lost more than two years of her photographs of family and friends which could never be replaced. Also every time I have a computer problem I seem to lose data when forced to restore or recover the device. It’s not that we don’t do proper backups, it’s that we sometimes forget to do them. With this new system some of our backups will now be done automatically into the Cloud which has been installed in an area not easily discovered by marauding criminals. Between the two of us we have more than thirty thousand photographs and five thousand songs in storage that are now safe from loss. It’s easy to replace a device but some other things are just irreplaceable and require extra protection. It’ll take a day of two to copy everything completely to the new four terabyte Cloud but I’ll certainly sleep better knowing it’s finally done.
So hooray for me and it’s back to NASA and another steaming cup of hot and delicious "Midnight Velvet" coffee. That’ll get my heart started for sure.
