Tekk News

Thursday, November 05, 2009

New Toys, Verizon vs AT&T, LINKSYS #Fail, and Google Owns Up

It's been some time since I posted on my blog, been kinda busy. But I hope to get back on track again. Okay, so I am going to go back little ways and try to summarize a few things that happened recently.

Viper Alarms came out with a new gadget...you know me and new toys...LOVE EM! Well this one is a "add on" for an existing alarm system that offers Remote Start as well as Door Lock access...from your iPhone! How cool is that!? It uses cellular signals, so the range is near limitless, except for when you are in an area that gets no cell reception. $299 for the version that connects to an already existing compatible Viper System and $499 if you have an alarms system that is to old, or not compatible. A little pricey, but so way cool...

In other news...Verizon continues to bad mouth Apple. Now they are playing commercials to promote their new Droid phone which runs the Google Android OS. They are trying to point out all the "flaws" of iPhone as well as trying to bash AT7T and their service. Meanwhile, you think Verizon would look at itself and realize it's service isn't the best, and they nickle and dime their customers out the nose for features. So AT&T's response...they sue. Okay, I agree, not the most mature way of handling the situation...but in this day and age, can you blame them? If a lady that orders hot coffee from McDonald's and accidentally drops is on herself, can sue because the coffee was hot...and win! Well... Need I say more?

Recently I upgraded my computer system to Windows 7. I swore to myself I would never install a 1st generation OS, but...I couldn't resist. The install confused me a little since I was doing a "clean install" using an "upgrade" version...but after I realized what I was doing wrong, it went smoothly after that. The only problem I had from the very beginning was a driver issue with my USB Network Dongle... I admit, not Microsoft's fault though! It was all on LINKSYS. Talk about an EPIC Fail from one of the largest Networking (if not THE largest) companies in the world. According to LINKSYS's own technical reps, they had no Windows 7 driver for my USB NIC, didn't have any information on when or even if they were coming out with any. Then when I asked if they had any products that were compatible, she directed to me to an internal PCI version of their wireless adapter as being the only one they have that works with Windows 7. Mind you the USB NIC I owned was just realised about three month back...why would a new product not be made ready and compatible with a new OS that all the manufactures knew was coming out over a year in advance? Then to tell your customers that you might not ever make it compatible, and that in order to use wireless they need to learn to crack open their PCs (and possibly void warranties in the process) to install an internal card? Are you serious? LINKSYS...let me tell you, I returned your USB NIC, got a credit and bought a Netgear USB NIC that worked STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX. Now if I can only get EverQuest II to run properly on my Win7 machine, I'll be all set... Hehehe

And lastly (for now), Google announced today that in response to the growing fear of the amount of data Google now holds about people, it has developed the Google Dashboard. This new site will summarize and display ALL the information that Google has stored, about YOU! And they tell you which parts of the information are public, as well as give you options to make it private. Nice move Google... I admit, kinda scary to see how much information you have about me, but nice to know you aren't hiding that fact anymore either. Good first move to further strengthening our trust.

posted at 8:40 AM by Tekk Guy | Permalink |

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About Me

Name: Tekk Guy
Country: United States




About Me: I'm that tech guy…you know the one. When things are broken, I fix them. When they don't make sense, I explain them. When nothing is getting done, I do it. When a void occurs, I fill it. When there is silence on the call, I state the necessary. I'm that guy in IT that is relied upon by the competent as the nth tier of support, overlooked by management, and despised by the slackers. An InfoTech professional, aficionado of all things technological. I've been getting my geek on full-time since 1993, and have worked with information technology in some capacity since 1997 including VB 4-6, ASP, .Net, SQL, Java, HTML, ColdFusion, VBS, JS, Crystal Reports, COGNOS and more. I've worked on global scale environments for Fortune 500 companies and as a software engineer for local government agencies. My expertise is in Visual Basic currently in the .Net flavor, and focuses on user applications. I am also currently active in the ASP.Net programming arena, specializing in DotNetNuke Module development, site creation, and administration. Stated simply, if you need to get information from a-to-z, I'm the guy you want to see.


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