Fixing Windows 8

Posted on June 14, 2014 by Kevin

I guess my only real complaint about Windows 8 is that it isn’t finished, not even close.

I currently have a desktop running Windows 7, a laptop running Windows 8.1, a tablet running Windows 8.1 and a tablet running Windows RT 8.1. I’ve used every version of Windows since 3.0.

The challenge is that the same user interface that works in a keyboard/mouse/monitor configuration won’t work on a tablet. There’s a ton of stuff in Windows 8.1 that you just cannot do without starting the Windows desktop, and all of that is what’s not finished.

Fragmented settings

For better or worse, Windows is incredibly complicated—just look at the Event Viewer, or the Group Policy Editor. Probably the single most vexing problem with Windows is that you can’t easily find out how to set things. With Windows 8.1 the problem is even worse because there are more places where things are hidden. Windows 8 isn’t done until there is a tablet-oriented user interface that gives access to ALL of the settings in Windows. The Windows desktop is unusable on a tablet, and a tablet user shouldn’t be forced to use it, ever.

Fix the search

The flexible search on the Start screen is cool, but it needs to default to searching within the application when it’s invoked from within an application, not search everywhere.

Put the Windows 7 start button back

Losing the Start button was the single-most dumb thing Microsoft did with Windows 8. If I understand the rationale, the Start screen replaced the start button—but it doesn’t. Desktop users don’t want the tablet interface—it’s hugely inefficient with a mouse. Also the lack of a start button makes it frustrating to move back and for between Windows 7 and Windows 8 machines when the button in the corner does different things: on one system you have to right-click and the other left click and even then it’s not the same.

A good start

I like the Metro interface a lot. It makes sense, it’s fast and responsive, it’s easy to organize, and it works great on a tablet. Now finish it, so I don’t have to keep switching to the desktop to do stuff.

Posted in Microsoft Surface, Technology | Tagged | Leave a comment

An open letter to the FCC

Posted on June 10, 2014 by Kevin

Tom Wheeler, Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

Dear Mr. Wheeler:

The Federal Trade Commission called “Rachel from Cardholder Services” public enemy number one, yet years later these illegal telemarketing scams continue unabated. I believe that the reason the national Do Not Call Registry is ineffective is that telecommunications carriers aren’t doing their part, and consumers do not have the tools they need to help the law to be enforced.

In order to report an illegal telemarketing call one needs the caller’s phone number. It’s possible just to report a name like “Rachel at Cardholder Services” but that recorded message is used by many phone scammers and without a number, no enforcement is possible. If you ask a telemarketer for details about who they are, they hang up. Getting the phone number is made more difficult by the carriers:

1. They charge additional fees for Caller ID.
2. Callers can block their phone numbers from Caller ID.
3. Callers can spoof their phone numbers.

The second tool a consumer might want is the ability to block a number that calls them often. This too is defeated by the carriers:

1. They charge extra for blocking
2. They support blocking only a limited list of numbers
3. Callers can block or spoof their phone numbers.

I support a regulation from the FCC that would require phone companies to implement technical means to empower telecommunications users to stop illegal telemarketing. One suggestion is to implement a way to flag an illegal telemarketing call by entering *SPAM on a phone after the call ends. Such a signal would block the number for the consumer and automatically report it to the FTC. If some number of unique complaints, say 10,000, were received, the carrier would be required to block the number system wide. Other ideas may be better, but my point is that the current system doesn’t work and that consumers today don’t have the tools to deal with the problem.

Posted in Bad Commerce | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Getting Political: 2014

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Kevin

imageAnother election year has rolled around, and I’m getting a little political (I get more political in a presidential election year). The South Carolina Primary is tomorrow, June 10.

This year we have the unusual election of two US Senators in South Carolina: the usual 6-year election for Senator Graham’s seat, and an election to fill the unexpired 2 years of Jim DeMint’s term , who felt that it was more important to head a conservative think tank than to be a US Senator. Good riddance, Jim. DeMint’s seat had been temporarily filled by appointee Tim Scott.

Republican Lindsey Graham faces 6 Tea Party challengers, for whom he isn’t far-right enough. If Graham wins, things could get interesting according to insiders who say a certain prominent South Carolinian will run against him as an independent, a Ron Paul style candidate that could siphon off any Tea Party votes for Graham in the general election. Graham according to a recent poll has 49% support in the Republican Primary, with “Undecided” in second place at 35%. The SC Democratic Party has endorsed State Senator C. Bradley Hutto  in the race against Graham.

It has been a bizarre 4 years in South Carolina with the prospect of no Lieutenant Governor come July 1, and apparently no one wanting the job. Our first Lieutenant Governor of the term, Ken Ard, resigned amid ethics charges. The second, Glenn McConnell, resigns effective July 1 to become President of the College of Charleston, his alma mater. In South Carolina, the President pro tempore of the Senate becomes the Lieutenant Governor upon a vacancy (and leaves the Senate). However, current Senate President pro tempore John Courson says he will refuse to take the constitutional office and has resigned as President pro tem. If no Republican will take the job, we may end up with a Democratic Lieutenant Governor. 😯

About the only accomplishment of the SC Legislature this session was to pass a bill creating a uniform $25 fine for driving under the influence of texting, the next to last state in the nation to address the dangerous practice.

I learned about a very interesting web site maintained by South Carolina Republicans, called GOPwrite.com. They describe themselves as “reasonable grassroots Republicans.” I really like reasonable people.

Meanwhile local Democrats had a standing-room-only crowd at it’s monthly lunch meeting (about double the number expected).

I literally exercised my right to vote today by riding my bike the polling place. It’s not far, but oh the hills.

curbside_voting

Update:

Democrat John McGill is indeed South Carolina’s new Lieutenant Governor, and Thomas Ravenel has announced an independent challenge to Graham and Hutto in the Senate race.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Unsafe in Georgia

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Kevin

Georgia is the state next to where I live. I like to visit the Georgia Aquarium and the High Museum in Atlanta. Sometimes I shop at the outlets in Commerce, Georgia.

I don’t feel safe going to Georgia anymore now that the Governor signed a bill allowing guns in banks, churches, bars, schools (employees) and public buildings. I’m not trying to make a big fuss in the debate over the 2nd Amendment. It’s just a fact that people who are mentally unstable or abuse substances can get guns and that if enough guns are on the street, accidents will happen and people will get killed. I just don’t feel safe in Georgia, and I’m staying away.

Posted in Politics | Tagged | 2 Comments

AAAAA and AAAAA are not 2 guesses

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Kevin

I have a large number of beefs about authentications systems, but one of the stupidest things that they all do is to miscount password guesses.

Let’s say that my password is aaaaa and that I am trying to authenticate with some web site, and let’s further assume that my caps lock key is accidentally on. Instead of typing aaaaa, I am entering AAAAA. I don’t know this because the password entry box doesn’t show me what I typed (and very few applications give me the option of looking at the password). Since the password is wrong, I get a message telling me I typed it wrong. So I just figure I typed it wrong and enter AAAAA again. Wrong again. This time I look up the password in some secure file where it’s stored, see aaaaa, and then type AAAAA one more time very slowly. Three misses and I’m locked out. I may have to call customer service or do some messy thing with a password reset (which is typically designed to be much less secure than password authentication). If it’s my email password, then I may have a hard time resetting it. Some email hosts will even firewall your IP address because of wrong guesses.

It’s a mess, and all because password authentication programs can’t count. OK, you whiz kids:

AAAAA
AAAAA
AAAAA

is ONE wrong guess not 3. This stupid implementation is extra trouble for users and for system administrators. And don’t give me a stateless architecture objection—there are ways to do it. By the way, I am a retired software developer, and I have written authentications systems for commercial software. I did it right because I care about the people who have to use my code.

If I ever get my password straightened out, I’ll publish this article

Posted in Bad Commerce, Technology | Tagged | Leave a comment

Why are parts so expensive?

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Kevin

I have a Whirlpool dishwasher that’s about 12 years old. The racks that hold the dishes are corroded and broken. The jagged edges are a hazard to users of the machine. The dishwasher works well: the only problem is the racks. I called Whirlpool who referred me to an authorized distributor who quoted me a price of $377 for the three racks.

I can buy a brand new Whirlpool dishwasher today for $360, less than the price of the racks.

Given the age of the dishwasher, it makes economic sense for me to buy a new dishwasher rather than replace the racks. But the bigger picture is that if I do what is in my best economic interest, a usable dishwasher goes into the landfill, which is just not a good thing. This is not a rant against Whirlpool because the problem is everywhere. I needed a new rubber seal for my refrigerator door—about half the cost of a new refrigerator.

A fellow ran into the back side corner of my car at low speed a couple weeks ago. The repair bill (fortunately paid for by the other guy’s insurance) was over $3,500!

I have a wristwatch that my grandmother gave me at graduation. Just having this watch serviced (cleaned and oiled) costs more today than the watch cost new. These days watches, radios and televisions are much more reliable and don’t need as many repairs, but when the time comes for a repair, chances are that the repair is not economically feasible.

Growing up, my family was in the repair business. My father repaired watches and my uncle repaired radios and televisions. They learned from my grandfather, who had a sign in his store: “We fix everything but a broken heart.”

If we as a society are going to get a handle on our trash, we need to address the issue of the cost of repairs.

Posted in Bad Commerce | Tagged | 10 Comments

Surface v. Surface 2

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Kevin

I’ve been somewhat of a fan of the Microsoft Surface RT tablet computer. What I like about it is its productivity features, a big screen, nice keyboard available, Microsoft Office built in, and the ability to plug in USB peripherals. So for the things I do, watch movies, play games, blog, read email, social media and the occasional document or spreadsheet, it’s perfect. With one of the keyboard covers, it becomes something of a laptop replacement, even more so with an external mouse.

All of those good things said, there are a few things I wasn’t too happy with:

  1. The screen resolution is a little low for book reading. I found the Kindle app book text a little grainy.
  2. The resolution on the cameras isn’t all that high.
  3. It’s a tad slow starting programs.
  4. Connecting the charger cable is finicky.
  5. The battery life isn’t as long as I would like, and if you took it on a very long airplane trip (say across the ocean), you’d run out of juice.

So I’m selling my Surface on eBay—because—I got a Surface 2.

imageThe Surface 2 addresses all 5 of my dislikes for the original Surface.

In addition, the Surface 2 has a USB 3.0 port where you can plug in one of those huge-capacity portable hard drives. (You can plug those into the Surface too, but it’s only USB 2.0.) My son, the Microsoft guy, gave me a keyboard like the one at the right for Christmas and it works equally well on the Surface 2. Of course, by logging into my Microsoft account, all the settings and installed apps came across. I had to enter passwords into the apps again, and set up my network printer, but that didn’t take long.

The Surface 2 comes with two one-year freebies. You get 200GB of OneDrive cloud. Microsoft normally charges $100 for this much storage. I’ll never use it more than the 7 GB everybody gets. The other is unlimited Skype calls to phones for a year and access to their two million hotspots. This latter feature is one I will certainly be looking for when I’m traveling. The two hotspots nearest me are in hotels that provide free Wi-Fi to their guests anyway. The ones in the Atlanta airport are more interesting.

Posted in Microsoft Surface | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment