The Surface Pro 2 is excellent hardware, but the software lets it down in various ways.
All told, it's still the best Windows machine I've ever owned, but it definitely needs a lot more work.
Here's a weird thing I hit today : I was losing around 15%-25% CPU on "System" and "System Interrupts".
I had installed c. 1.5GB of updates in the last several days - maybe that caused it?
Hmmm - there was one other thing I changed, this morning. Maybe that caused it?
I changed it back - and the problem went away!
So : if your Surface Pro 2 runs fine after a reboot, but is wasting a lot of CPU (and hence slashing battery runtime to just an hour or two) with "System" and "System Interrupts" after putting the machine to sleep and then waking it up, there is a chance it might have something to do with this :
This morning, I went into Device Manager and disabled "Allow this device to wake the computer" in the "Power Management" tab in the Device Properties for each of the two "Mice and other pointing devices". (I suspect one was the touchscreen and the other the Type Cover's trackpad, but they both simply showed as "HID-compliant mouse".)
I had already - weeks or months prior - done the same for the Keyboards, but that had seemed to have no effect at the time.
What I was trying to accomplish was have it that any accidental keypresses or mouse movements would not wake the device from sleep. I wanted to know that only pressing the power button, or perhaps the Windows button, would wake it.
I at last had that behavior! When I had only disabled wake-the-computer for the keyboards but not the mice, the keyboard would still wake the device. I guess that because the Type Cover has both keyboard and mouse together, I must've needed to disable the wake-the-device option for both or else power would remain to both and both would remain able to wake the device.
So this morning I was very happy for a short while, because no action on the Type Cover would wake the device. Just what I wanted! But I quickly discovered serious side-effects. nircmd no longer worked to turn the screen off. And this "System" and "System Interrupts" high CPU usage bug!!!
I lost a few hours trying to get things working, and finally realized the "System" and "System Interrupts" high CPU usage might've been a strange side-effect from disabling the allow-to-wake-computer options for those two mice. I reverted that setting, and voila - nircmd resumed working and the "System" and "System Interrupts" problem went away without even a reboot!
Don't ask me how to fix the problem in your case, and don't ask me why changing that particular setting would have such seemingly unrelated side-effects, but if you're desperately searching for clues, my case adds a few more. I hope it helps someone!
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Monday, October 14, 2013
phoneSWIPE, PanopticSecurity, myPCI, PCI compliance
phoneSWIPE is cool, so you get one.
Then you get this email from "PanopticSecurity" on behalf of "North American Bancard", telling you that you need to complete a PCI compliance questionnaire.
The very first page of the questionnaire asks you what kind of credit card processing system you're using. At the moment, phoneSWIPE is not even listed on the page. Anywhere.
So you take a stab at it, and end up going through a tedious and time-wasting questionnaire with loads of questions you're pretty sure don't even apply.
Finally at the end, PantopticSecurity helpfully tells you that you require quarterly external "network scans" which they can oh so helpfully do for just $60 a year. But if you did your homework before you joined phoneSWIPE, you knew that phoneSWIPE encrypts the cardholder data on the swiper and you shouldn't need network scans.
I had a frustrating time trying to complete the questionnaire, and a frustrating time with their text chat staff, who initially sent me down the wrong track.
What they told me in the end is that if you use phoneSWIPE on a cell phone running over 3g or 4g (i.e. not running via ADSL, cable internet, or some other wired or wireless shared internet connection), then at the very start of the process you need to say you have a dial-up credit card processing system. Dial-up. Yeah, like an Android 4.2 phone with a sophisticated phoneSWIPE audio port dongle with built-in encryption is dial-up. But that's what they told me.
They also told me that if you dare actually ever use your office wifi for credit card processing, you do have to go through the ridiculously long questionnaire with a zillion questions that seem entirely irrelevant and which ends with them absolutely insisting you must spend the $60 annually for external network monitoring. I suspect it's a rip-off, but I'll end my investigations here since at least I've determined that rip-off is inapplicable in my case.
Chat transcript, to shame Panoptic Security for making such a confusing system. (I'll give them points for a) the politeness of the text chat operator, even if they at least twice were clearly not paying attention to what I said; and b) for a few things in their questionnaire that make it clear they're trying to make it less onerous ------- but unfortunately they need to do a WHOLE LOT BETTER at least when it comes to phoneSWIPE customers.)
[Natasha] Hi, my name is Natasha on the PCI DSS Program Help Desk. How can I help you today?
[Me] This is an extremely confusing questionnaire. We have a phoneSWIPE device, but it is not in the list of options to choose from at the outset of the questionnaire.
[Me] So I tried to answer the questions as best I could, and now I'm being asked a gadzillion questions that I'm pretty sure are irrelevant.
[Natasha] is your phone swipe connected to your wifi or 4g network?
[Me] 3g Verizon network
[Me] For example, I've just come to this one : "Since your payment applications do handle sensitive authentication data, are processes in place to securely delete the data and to verify that the data is unrecoverable?" Um, no actually, I was told that the cardholder data is encrypted within the phoneSWIPE device, meaning that there is no way anything on my Android phone could ever decrypt it. It goes encrypted from the phoneSWIPE device over to the back-end processing systems. So why is this question assuming that my "payment applications DO handle sensitive authentication data"?
[Natasha] Is that the phone internet?
[Me] 3g Verizon network is the internet the phone uses, if that's what you're asking
[Me] We also have a wifi network that we leave off all the time, except that if Verizon coverage is not good enough, we turn it on just for the phone. There are no other devices on that wireless network.
[Me] It's extremely confusing trying to answer the questions in this questionnaire - they seem to presuppose a setup entirely different from our own.
[Natasha] As you use the Verizon you need to complete the questionnaire that has been assigned to you today. If you find the question difficult you can call our help desk we do have agents that are here to assist you with completing the process today
[Me] So when I come across questions that presuppose things that simply aren't true, am I supposed to just flip a coin which way I answer?
[Me] Also, is there any reason why phoneSWIPE wasn't listed on the very first screen, where you select the technology you're using? phoneSWIPE wants us to believe they're big and important - but their non-existence on that list implies YOU think they're basically irrelevant. Are they really that small a player? If so, I should probably ditch them. If not, then list them on the main page so people like me can have more confidence the questionnaire is appropriately tailored to our situation.
[Natasha] You can answer yes to them questions.
[Natasha] They are in the process of updating that onto the portal but as for at the moment if your phone swipe is connected to your wireless then you need to click on standard internet terminal and if it is not the you need to click on standard dial up terminal .
[Me] Thanks for your comments. I'll keep muddling through the questionnaire. Have a great day!
[Natasha] Your welcome, same to you.
(long time passes)
[Me] If you happen to still be there, I've gotten to the end of the process and it's told me I "need" a network scan, costing $60 a year. I believe this conclusion to be false.
[Natasha] If you are connected to the internet then yes you will need to run a scan of the yearly cost of $59.
[Me] If I understand it correctly, phoneSWIPE represented that since the cardholder data is encrypted on the swiper and only passes through the computing device encrypted, and is only able to be decrypted on the phoneSWIPE servers which do pass PCI compliance, that there is no way that cardholder data could be compromoised on the computing device (Android phone in this case).
[Me] Further, any IP address the phone is assigned by Verizon changes without notice.
[Natasha] I understand that but as you are connected to your wireless or wifi in the business we need to scan your router.
[Me] Hmmm, but again here I'm not convinced myPCI's questionnaire anticipates our environment. The wifi is OFF ALL OF THE TIME. We turn it on when our device needs internet access _and doesn't have Verizon coverage_. The thing is, we only do credit card swiping in locations we have Verizon coverage. So the wifi is NEVER on when processing credit cards.
[Me] Also, suppose we wanted this "service", what IP address are we supposed to put in the Panoptic sign-up form, given that the we have a dynamic IP address?
[Natasha] Which is why you need to run a scan, I understand it is only turned on when you need to process a payments but you still turn it on and use it in your business for when you process a payments. We can the firewall built within your router to make sure the firewall has no vulnerabilities in it. So we need to make sure no one can gain access to the card holder data from the net and no information can be leaked out.
[Me] You misread - it is NEVER turned on when we need to process a payment.
[Me] We only process payments in locations we have Verizon coverage, and in such cases we do not need wifi and our wifi is OFF.
[Natasha] Every internet has a public IP address. If you Google whatsmyip.org it will provide you with that information you require.
[Natasha] So you only use you phone internet not the business one?
[Me] For credit card processing, we NEVER use the wifi/broadband. We ALWAYS use the Verizon 3g.
[Me] (When we are selling goods & services we are out & about and in Verizon coverage areas.)
[Natasha] In the pre saq you need to click on standard dial up terminal and you will be assigned the correct questionnaire and no scan will be required form you.
[Me] So I just wasted half an hour after you told me "As you use the Verizon you need to complete the questionnaire that has been assigned to you today." I told you the questionnaire seemed inapplicable, and I told you that I use Verizon, and you told me that I had the right questionnaire. Now you tell me otherwise.
[Me] I'd also like to know how any phoneSWIPE user is supposed to figure out that their high-tech card reader plug-in for their Android cell phone is actually a "dial-up terminal". You tell me they're updating the front menu to make that more obvious. I hope they get that updated finished real soon, 'coz otherwise they're wasting a lot of time for a lot of people like me, who end up wasting a lot of time from people like you.
[Natasha] I am sorry you confused me by talking about your wifi in your business.
(Editors' note : I only mentioned wifi because the questionnaire was asking about it. I knew it was irrelevant!!!)
[Natasha] As we are not based in America I am not familiar with the networks
[Me] Ah - that makes sense.
[Me] ok, thanks for the pointer to SAQ B and hopefully it'll be smooth sailing from here!
[Natasha] I do apologies. It is a less complex questionnaire and you should have no problem with completing the process form here.
[Me] Done - thanks again & have a great day. Over & out.
Then you get this email from "PanopticSecurity" on behalf of "North American Bancard", telling you that you need to complete a PCI compliance questionnaire.
The very first page of the questionnaire asks you what kind of credit card processing system you're using. At the moment, phoneSWIPE is not even listed on the page. Anywhere.
So you take a stab at it, and end up going through a tedious and time-wasting questionnaire with loads of questions you're pretty sure don't even apply.
Finally at the end, PantopticSecurity helpfully tells you that you require quarterly external "network scans" which they can oh so helpfully do for just $60 a year. But if you did your homework before you joined phoneSWIPE, you knew that phoneSWIPE encrypts the cardholder data on the swiper and you shouldn't need network scans.
I had a frustrating time trying to complete the questionnaire, and a frustrating time with their text chat staff, who initially sent me down the wrong track.
What they told me in the end is that if you use phoneSWIPE on a cell phone running over 3g or 4g (i.e. not running via ADSL, cable internet, or some other wired or wireless shared internet connection), then at the very start of the process you need to say you have a dial-up credit card processing system. Dial-up. Yeah, like an Android 4.2 phone with a sophisticated phoneSWIPE audio port dongle with built-in encryption is dial-up. But that's what they told me.
They also told me that if you dare actually ever use your office wifi for credit card processing, you do have to go through the ridiculously long questionnaire with a zillion questions that seem entirely irrelevant and which ends with them absolutely insisting you must spend the $60 annually for external network monitoring. I suspect it's a rip-off, but I'll end my investigations here since at least I've determined that rip-off is inapplicable in my case.
Chat transcript, to shame Panoptic Security for making such a confusing system. (I'll give them points for a) the politeness of the text chat operator, even if they at least twice were clearly not paying attention to what I said; and b) for a few things in their questionnaire that make it clear they're trying to make it less onerous ------- but unfortunately they need to do a WHOLE LOT BETTER at least when it comes to phoneSWIPE customers.)
[Natasha] Hi, my name is Natasha on the PCI DSS Program Help Desk. How can I help you today?
[Me] This is an extremely confusing questionnaire. We have a phoneSWIPE device, but it is not in the list of options to choose from at the outset of the questionnaire.
[Me] So I tried to answer the questions as best I could, and now I'm being asked a gadzillion questions that I'm pretty sure are irrelevant.
[Natasha] is your phone swipe connected to your wifi or 4g network?
[Me] 3g Verizon network
[Me] For example, I've just come to this one : "Since your payment applications do handle sensitive authentication data, are processes in place to securely delete the data and to verify that the data is unrecoverable?" Um, no actually, I was told that the cardholder data is encrypted within the phoneSWIPE device, meaning that there is no way anything on my Android phone could ever decrypt it. It goes encrypted from the phoneSWIPE device over to the back-end processing systems. So why is this question assuming that my "payment applications DO handle sensitive authentication data"?
[Natasha] Is that the phone internet?
[Me] 3g Verizon network is the internet the phone uses, if that's what you're asking
[Me] We also have a wifi network that we leave off all the time, except that if Verizon coverage is not good enough, we turn it on just for the phone. There are no other devices on that wireless network.
[Me] It's extremely confusing trying to answer the questions in this questionnaire - they seem to presuppose a setup entirely different from our own.
[Natasha] As you use the Verizon you need to complete the questionnaire that has been assigned to you today. If you find the question difficult you can call our help desk we do have agents that are here to assist you with completing the process today
[Me] So when I come across questions that presuppose things that simply aren't true, am I supposed to just flip a coin which way I answer?
[Me] Also, is there any reason why phoneSWIPE wasn't listed on the very first screen, where you select the technology you're using? phoneSWIPE wants us to believe they're big and important - but their non-existence on that list implies YOU think they're basically irrelevant. Are they really that small a player? If so, I should probably ditch them. If not, then list them on the main page so people like me can have more confidence the questionnaire is appropriately tailored to our situation.
[Natasha] You can answer yes to them questions.
[Natasha] They are in the process of updating that onto the portal but as for at the moment if your phone swipe is connected to your wireless then you need to click on standard internet terminal and if it is not the you need to click on standard dial up terminal .
[Me] Thanks for your comments. I'll keep muddling through the questionnaire. Have a great day!
[Natasha] Your welcome, same to you.
(long time passes)
[Me] If you happen to still be there, I've gotten to the end of the process and it's told me I "need" a network scan, costing $60 a year. I believe this conclusion to be false.
[Natasha] If you are connected to the internet then yes you will need to run a scan of the yearly cost of $59.
[Me] If I understand it correctly, phoneSWIPE represented that since the cardholder data is encrypted on the swiper and only passes through the computing device encrypted, and is only able to be decrypted on the phoneSWIPE servers which do pass PCI compliance, that there is no way that cardholder data could be compromoised on the computing device (Android phone in this case).
[Me] Further, any IP address the phone is assigned by Verizon changes without notice.
[Natasha] I understand that but as you are connected to your wireless or wifi in the business we need to scan your router.
[Me] Hmmm, but again here I'm not convinced myPCI's questionnaire anticipates our environment. The wifi is OFF ALL OF THE TIME. We turn it on when our device needs internet access _and doesn't have Verizon coverage_. The thing is, we only do credit card swiping in locations we have Verizon coverage. So the wifi is NEVER on when processing credit cards.
[Me] Also, suppose we wanted this "service", what IP address are we supposed to put in the Panoptic sign-up form, given that the we have a dynamic IP address?
[Natasha] Which is why you need to run a scan, I understand it is only turned on when you need to process a payments but you still turn it on and use it in your business for when you process a payments. We can the firewall built within your router to make sure the firewall has no vulnerabilities in it. So we need to make sure no one can gain access to the card holder data from the net and no information can be leaked out.
[Me] You misread - it is NEVER turned on when we need to process a payment.
[Me] We only process payments in locations we have Verizon coverage, and in such cases we do not need wifi and our wifi is OFF.
[Natasha] Every internet has a public IP address. If you Google whatsmyip.org it will provide you with that information you require.
[Natasha] So you only use you phone internet not the business one?
[Me] For credit card processing, we NEVER use the wifi/broadband. We ALWAYS use the Verizon 3g.
[Me] (When we are selling goods & services we are out & about and in Verizon coverage areas.)
[Natasha] In the pre saq you need to click on standard dial up terminal and you will be assigned the correct questionnaire and no scan will be required form you.
[Me] So I just wasted half an hour after you told me "As you use the Verizon you need to complete the questionnaire that has been assigned to you today." I told you the questionnaire seemed inapplicable, and I told you that I use Verizon, and you told me that I had the right questionnaire. Now you tell me otherwise.
[Me] I'd also like to know how any phoneSWIPE user is supposed to figure out that their high-tech card reader plug-in for their Android cell phone is actually a "dial-up terminal". You tell me they're updating the front menu to make that more obvious. I hope they get that updated finished real soon, 'coz otherwise they're wasting a lot of time for a lot of people like me, who end up wasting a lot of time from people like you.
[Natasha] I am sorry you confused me by talking about your wifi in your business.
(Editors' note : I only mentioned wifi because the questionnaire was asking about it. I knew it was irrelevant!!!)
[Natasha] As we are not based in America I am not familiar with the networks
[Me] Ah - that makes sense.
[Me] ok, thanks for the pointer to SAQ B and hopefully it'll be smooth sailing from here!
[Natasha] I do apologies. It is a less complex questionnaire and you should have no problem with completing the process form here.
[Me] Done - thanks again & have a great day. Over & out.
Friday, May 31, 2013
7+ Taskbar Tweaker is AWESOME
The skinny :
7+ Taskbar Tweaker makes Windows 7 even better.The two things I can now do that I couldn't previously :
- Re-arrange the order of items in a stacked taskbar group.
- See seconds on clock in the system tray!
The fat :
I love Windows 7.7+ Taskbar Tweaker makes it even better.
I'm one of those common-enough-but-not-so-common guys who tends to have ZILLIONS of things open at the same time.
Especially web browsers.
Dragging & dropping tabs around within browser windows is very useful.
And the ability to drag & drop Windows 7 taskbar entries around is very useful.
But I HAVE to use "grouping" or "stacking" on the taskbar, or else I end up with three or four rows of icons.
Some might argue I should use Windows differently than I do. I say it works very well for me.
But what didn't work so well was that the spatial aspects of the Windows desktop were compromised by the order of items in the stacked / grouped windows.
e.g. open Notepad, enter "Text 1", open another Notepad, enter "Text 2", open another Notepad, and enter "Text 3". Now suppose you want to refer frequently to "Text 3". It's third up from the bottom. Easy enough.
But suppose you're a programmer, and Windows 7 is still not the most reliable beast in the world, and maybe once or twice a month you have Windows Explorer crash on you and restart. The crash & restart isn't very painful - at least they've smoothed over that process - but now the order of items within the stacked / grouped lists has changed! Whatever Notepad you happened to have used most recently prior to the Windows Explorer crash & restart, is now at the top of the list. The order of items in the list is changed to match the somewhat arbitrary z-order of windows at the time the Windows Explorer crash occurred! Not so useful.
And if like me you have lots of browser windows open (not just lots of tabs within windows - which I also do), then you spend more time than you care to hunting through the list of open windows in any group, trying to find GMail or that project management tool or whatever it is you like.
7+ Taskbar Tweaker resolves this problem, and does more besides. It downloads quickly, and installs easily, and gives you a very impressive range of customisation options for the Taskbar.
But most importantly for me, it works with Windows 7 64-bit and allows me to relatively-easily change the order of items in any grouped / stacked set of windows, to whatever I want.
Since my taskbar is at the bottom of my screen, I figure it's most efficient to have my most-frequently-accessed browser windows at the bottom of the stack. Can do. GMail first, then other very-frequently-accessed management tools.
Voila! Much less time hunting for things, much more time getting things done. Swapping between tools or quickly referring to a document is now easier.
And of course this works with my in-house Autosave Notepad, and with PDFs open in Adobe Acrobat, and with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, and with any other Windows app where you might from time to time end up with a bunch of open documents for reference as you work.
I love it! Great work whoever you are who wrote 7+ Taskbar Tweaker!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
GeeMail damaged my data
The skinny :
I don't recommend trying GeeMail.
The fat :
For various reasons, I wanted a standlone GMail app on my Windows 7 laptop.
Specifically, it had to run in its own process - i.e. not simply as another tab in a browser, nor as a browser window that's still part of a larger FireFox or whatever process. I needed to be able to kill my browser without affecting my GMail.
I found one. It's called GeeMail. There appear to be no other options.
I installed it. When I ran it, it consumed 100% of one core for many minutes. When it finally loaded, it showed about one screenful of emails all with no subject line. That's right - no sender, no subject line to see in the list. Basically a useless list.
It appears there's also no built-in search, which is rather limiting.
But the thing that shocked me most, and made me immediately close it down and stop using it (and therefore I don't know what other features it does or doesn't have) :
Since GeeMail was basically useless when just showing a list of emails with no identifying information in each list entry, I jumped back into my browser to check email.
Guess what?
Roughly a few dozen emails that had been marked Unread, were now all marked Read.
For a moment I thought maybe GeeMail had done that for a great slab of emails.
It appears now it had only done it for roughly a screenful.
But that's a screenful too many.
I'm one of those who use an email's Unread status to flag when action is required.
"The fault is with you - you should learn how to use email properly." Since when were you the expert who knows how a new technology like email should be used? Since when was the world so advanced that there was no longer room for variation in how we try to tame the email beast?
Nay, the fault lies squarely with GeeMail.
I don't know how many important emails disappeared from my Inbox, but I fished back at least one.
Fished it back, that is, using the browser-based version of GMail.
And sadly, it is with that browser-based version of GMail that I must remain, at least for now.
Experiments for another day :
* Run GMail on a tablet with a keyboard. (iPad or Android tablet.)
One downside of this approach is that I still want to separate general browsing from email, so I want any links I click in an email to open in a separate browser. iPad or Android will do that, but then I'm stuck using mobile versions of browsers, which unfortunately are not suitable for the information processing tasks I perform.
* Try to run two concurrent copies of FireFox - one just for email, one for browsing.
One downside of this approach is that I need to go to a lot more effort to open a link from an email. Open link, copy URL, paste into other FireFox, close tab that opened in GMail FireFox. But it would sorta work.
* Run one browser (e.g. Google Chrome) just for GMail, and a different one (e.g. FireFox) just for general browsing.
Again, a lot more effort to open a link from an email, but it would sorta work.
* Write a decent standalone desktop GMail app. C'mon, iOS and Android have ones, so it must be possible! Why aren't there others already? Are there really that few of us who want that feature?
Downside : major time cost.
* Use a standalone email client and download GMail messages via POP.
But the very reason I want to stick with GMail is because I like the way it "thinks". Its concept of conversations, its concept of tagging, its "Priority Inbox", and the built-in search. Yes, it can definitely be improved on in various ways. But switching e.g. to Outlook downloading from GMail would be a retrograde step in these key areas.
In short, there are options, but no good options.
If I built a standalone desktop Windows GMail client that preserves access to the things that make GMail great - and if it worked well - would you use it?
Maybe this would be a good open-source project.
I don't recommend trying GeeMail.
The fat :
For various reasons, I wanted a standlone GMail app on my Windows 7 laptop.
Specifically, it had to run in its own process - i.e. not simply as another tab in a browser, nor as a browser window that's still part of a larger FireFox or whatever process. I needed to be able to kill my browser without affecting my GMail.
I found one. It's called GeeMail. There appear to be no other options.
I installed it. When I ran it, it consumed 100% of one core for many minutes. When it finally loaded, it showed about one screenful of emails all with no subject line. That's right - no sender, no subject line to see in the list. Basically a useless list.
It appears there's also no built-in search, which is rather limiting.
But the thing that shocked me most, and made me immediately close it down and stop using it (and therefore I don't know what other features it does or doesn't have) :
Since GeeMail was basically useless when just showing a list of emails with no identifying information in each list entry, I jumped back into my browser to check email.
Guess what?
Roughly a few dozen emails that had been marked Unread, were now all marked Read.
For a moment I thought maybe GeeMail had done that for a great slab of emails.
It appears now it had only done it for roughly a screenful.
But that's a screenful too many.
I'm one of those who use an email's Unread status to flag when action is required.
"The fault is with you - you should learn how to use email properly." Since when were you the expert who knows how a new technology like email should be used? Since when was the world so advanced that there was no longer room for variation in how we try to tame the email beast?
Nay, the fault lies squarely with GeeMail.
I don't know how many important emails disappeared from my Inbox, but I fished back at least one.
Fished it back, that is, using the browser-based version of GMail.
And sadly, it is with that browser-based version of GMail that I must remain, at least for now.
Experiments for another day :
* Run GMail on a tablet with a keyboard. (iPad or Android tablet.)
One downside of this approach is that I still want to separate general browsing from email, so I want any links I click in an email to open in a separate browser. iPad or Android will do that, but then I'm stuck using mobile versions of browsers, which unfortunately are not suitable for the information processing tasks I perform.
* Try to run two concurrent copies of FireFox - one just for email, one for browsing.
One downside of this approach is that I need to go to a lot more effort to open a link from an email. Open link, copy URL, paste into other FireFox, close tab that opened in GMail FireFox. But it would sorta work.
* Run one browser (e.g. Google Chrome) just for GMail, and a different one (e.g. FireFox) just for general browsing.
Again, a lot more effort to open a link from an email, but it would sorta work.
* Write a decent standalone desktop GMail app. C'mon, iOS and Android have ones, so it must be possible! Why aren't there others already? Are there really that few of us who want that feature?
Downside : major time cost.
* Use a standalone email client and download GMail messages via POP.
But the very reason I want to stick with GMail is because I like the way it "thinks". Its concept of conversations, its concept of tagging, its "Priority Inbox", and the built-in search. Yes, it can definitely be improved on in various ways. But switching e.g. to Outlook downloading from GMail would be a retrograde step in these key areas.
In short, there are options, but no good options.
If I built a standalone desktop Windows GMail client that preserves access to the things that make GMail great - and if it worked well - would you use it?
Maybe this would be a good open-source project.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
SD cards unreadable on Windows 7 - Acronis True Image at root of problem
This was a very weird one, and the solution was to disable the Acronis Nonstop Backup Service.
Symptoms : Sony Vaio Z laptop, Windows 7 Ultimate, built-in SD card reader completely stopped recognising SD cards. Made no sense why, but I got around it by using the SD card reader in another machine.
Eventually got frustrated enough with the problem that I spent more time Google-ing, and lo-and-behold, Acronis True Image was the problem. I didn't have to uninstall it - just going in to Local Services and stopping and disabling the Acronis Nonstop Backup Service did the trick. The next SD card I inserted worked perfectly.
Note - in the post I linked to above, people talk about needing to reboot after disabling the Acronis Nonstop Backup Service. This indicates that they changed the startup type to "disabled" without stopping the currently-running copy of the service. i.e. make sure you STOP the service AND disable it from starting again in future. Or if you just disable it without stopping it, then you will need to reboot for the change to take effect.
Many thanks to the folks in the above-linked forum page for providing such a simple yet inobvious solution to such an annoying problem!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Magnetic Laundry Balls - glad I didn't buy
It sounded awesome - never use laundry powder (detergent) again - just place these reusable magnetic balls in the washing machine instead.
Claimed to alter the surface tension of the water, making it wash more effectively.
Hmmmm - y'know, sounds cool. I considered buying.
But I Googled for more info, 'coz it did seem, well, pretty extraordinary.
First big clue that something's sus : page after page of search results are almost entirely official websites or resellers.
Y'know, if I'd found such an awesome product and it worked for me, I'd've blogged about it, right? So where are the rave testimonials, not from random unknowns who might be company agents, but on blogs that have loads and laods of reviews - some positive, some negative - demonstrating their impartiality?
In contrast, there are numerous reports that cast these "magnetic laundry balls" in very bad light. You can find them yourself if you dig & dig through pages of Google search results. I'll just link to a few here to help improve their Google rank.
Magnetic laundry ball scam
Magnetic laundry aids and surface tension reduction - a critique
Magnetic laundry scams - not as detailed, but relevant
Buyer beware!
Claimed to alter the surface tension of the water, making it wash more effectively.
Hmmmm - y'know, sounds cool. I considered buying.
But I Googled for more info, 'coz it did seem, well, pretty extraordinary.
First big clue that something's sus : page after page of search results are almost entirely official websites or resellers.
Y'know, if I'd found such an awesome product and it worked for me, I'd've blogged about it, right? So where are the rave testimonials, not from random unknowns who might be company agents, but on blogs that have loads and laods of reviews - some positive, some negative - demonstrating their impartiality?
In contrast, there are numerous reports that cast these "magnetic laundry balls" in very bad light. You can find them yourself if you dig & dig through pages of Google search results. I'll just link to a few here to help improve their Google rank.
Magnetic laundry ball scam
Magnetic laundry aids and surface tension reduction - a critique
Magnetic laundry scams - not as detailed, but relevant
Buyer beware!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Google Apps GMail bug with multiple sign-in and POP3 access
The skinny : Trouble with POP3 or forwarding from one GMail or Google Apps account to another? Make sure you're signed out of all multiple-sign-ins in all browsers for the affected accounts, and don't multiple-sign-in again with the account your trying to get emails from.
The fat : read on...
GMail is a very refined product, but unfortunately, its rare bugs tend to be extremely poorly handled, causing wasted time chasing rabbits hither and thither.
Take my recent challenge of combining a Google Apps email account into my personal GMail account. Should be easy, right? And it did seem so.
I configured my personal GMail account to be able to send as my Google Apps email address - all worked fine.
And I configured the Google Apps email account to auto-forward to my personal email account and delete - and that was working fine too.
Then I discovered a cool new feature in GMail (and the wider world of Google) called "multiple sign-in", making it possible to be concurrently signed in to multiple accounts! Whoohoo! I tried it, but it wasn't as seamless an experience as I'd hoped for, so I decided to just stick with having everything pouring into my personal GMail account.
And the world got pretty quiet.
But hey - it was new year, so I figured everyone was away.
But I did get a report of an email sent to me, that definitely never arrived.
And then another report from a different sender.
Hmmm..........
I logged into my Google Apps email account, and there were 15 emails that had never been forwarded to my personal GMail account!!! How did that happen!!!??!!?!!
I looked at the Google Apps email account's settings, and it had reverted back to not automatically forwarding emails. I corrected that, telling it once again to forward all emails to my personal GMail account.
That's not the end of the story - it's just getting started - but on this matter my educated guess is that GMail automatically disabled the auto-forwarding when that Google Apps email account became enabled for concurrent multiple sign-in. (Whether they would do that generally, or whether they did it because the forward-to email address was associated with the other of the concurrently-signed-in accounts, I don't know. It would be easy enough to test - you could let us know in the comments if you determine either way.)
So now my problem was 15 emails sitting in the one account when I wanted them in the other. I could manually forward each one - not optimal. Or I could try to use POP3 import that I use successfully in GMail for other accounts.
Only, every time I try POP3 import from the Google Apps email account to my personal email account, GMail tells me that the username + password combination is not accepted. Very strange.
I dig around and manage to confirm that pop.gmail.com is the correct POP3 server name even for Google Apps email accounts. So no problem there.
I've definitely set the POP3 port to 995 and set to use encryption. No problem there.
I try some other combinations of settings anyway just in case, but the error messages made it clear they weren't the right answer.
I found the POP3 bulk downloader tool in my personal GMail account, and tried to use that to download the emails from the Google Apps email account. But it just sat there saying "Connecting" for many minutes, until I closed the window. tried again with equal non-success and gave up on that approach.
I found a note about using Captcha Unlock for your GMail account, so I tried to use it for the Google Apps account, just in case that would help, but crazily, it kept telling me that the password I'd enterted was incorrect, even though it was correct. Just in case, I even went ahead and changed the password, which involved entering the current password for verification, and the change password proceeded fine, but even the new password was rejected as incorrect by the Google Captcha Unlock page.
Bizarre! Some Google pages knew my password, but others rejected it. Go figure.
I even tried multiple browsers - same result.
So it was no thanks to useless error messages and processes that totally failed me that I finally found what seems to be the solution.
I document it here for the few travellers encountering the same problem.
The solution? I signed out of all Google accounts in all browsers, and then studiously avoided using the multiple-sign-in feature. That was all it took. When signed in only to my personal GMail account, I was able to easily add a POP3 download from my Google Apps email account, and it worked flawlessly.
No thanks Google for the time wastage, but hey, big thanks still for an in-nearly-all-other-respects AWESOME product. GMail fanboy is me.
The fat : read on...
GMail is a very refined product, but unfortunately, its rare bugs tend to be extremely poorly handled, causing wasted time chasing rabbits hither and thither.
Take my recent challenge of combining a Google Apps email account into my personal GMail account. Should be easy, right? And it did seem so.
I configured my personal GMail account to be able to send as my Google Apps email address - all worked fine.
And I configured the Google Apps email account to auto-forward to my personal email account and delete - and that was working fine too.
Then I discovered a cool new feature in GMail (and the wider world of Google) called "multiple sign-in", making it possible to be concurrently signed in to multiple accounts! Whoohoo! I tried it, but it wasn't as seamless an experience as I'd hoped for, so I decided to just stick with having everything pouring into my personal GMail account.
And the world got pretty quiet.
But hey - it was new year, so I figured everyone was away.
But I did get a report of an email sent to me, that definitely never arrived.
And then another report from a different sender.
Hmmm..........
I logged into my Google Apps email account, and there were 15 emails that had never been forwarded to my personal GMail account!!! How did that happen!!!??!!?!!
I looked at the Google Apps email account's settings, and it had reverted back to not automatically forwarding emails. I corrected that, telling it once again to forward all emails to my personal GMail account.
That's not the end of the story - it's just getting started - but on this matter my educated guess is that GMail automatically disabled the auto-forwarding when that Google Apps email account became enabled for concurrent multiple sign-in. (Whether they would do that generally, or whether they did it because the forward-to email address was associated with the other of the concurrently-signed-in accounts, I don't know. It would be easy enough to test - you could let us know in the comments if you determine either way.)
So now my problem was 15 emails sitting in the one account when I wanted them in the other. I could manually forward each one - not optimal. Or I could try to use POP3 import that I use successfully in GMail for other accounts.
Only, every time I try POP3 import from the Google Apps email account to my personal email account, GMail tells me that the username + password combination is not accepted. Very strange.
I dig around and manage to confirm that pop.gmail.com is the correct POP3 server name even for Google Apps email accounts. So no problem there.
I've definitely set the POP3 port to 995 and set to use encryption. No problem there.
I try some other combinations of settings anyway just in case, but the error messages made it clear they weren't the right answer.
I found the POP3 bulk downloader tool in my personal GMail account, and tried to use that to download the emails from the Google Apps email account. But it just sat there saying "Connecting" for many minutes, until I closed the window. tried again with equal non-success and gave up on that approach.
I found a note about using Captcha Unlock for your GMail account, so I tried to use it for the Google Apps account, just in case that would help, but crazily, it kept telling me that the password I'd enterted was incorrect, even though it was correct. Just in case, I even went ahead and changed the password, which involved entering the current password for verification, and the change password proceeded fine, but even the new password was rejected as incorrect by the Google Captcha Unlock page.
Bizarre! Some Google pages knew my password, but others rejected it. Go figure.
I even tried multiple browsers - same result.
So it was no thanks to useless error messages and processes that totally failed me that I finally found what seems to be the solution.
I document it here for the few travellers encountering the same problem.
The solution? I signed out of all Google accounts in all browsers, and then studiously avoided using the multiple-sign-in feature. That was all it took. When signed in only to my personal GMail account, I was able to easily add a POP3 download from my Google Apps email account, and it worked flawlessly.
No thanks Google for the time wastage, but hey, big thanks still for an in-nearly-all-other-respects AWESOME product. GMail fanboy is me.
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