Happy new year!!

Hey friends and family... I'm going to try to start posting the answers to your questions on this blog again. This is one if my new years resolutions :)

So today I'm going to answer this question:

What anti-virus program should I use?

I've had several friends and family ask me this one... And it's one of the easiest to answer.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

That's it :) MOST of my friends and family are running Windows. (sorry Mac people, I don't know what you should use) Well, simply put, Microsoft's Security Essentials is what you should be using.

It's FREE
It's GOOD
It's written by people who know how the internal mechanisms of windows works..
It's essentially a part of windows that Microsoft didn't put in the package.

I really can't come up with a reason to use any if the paid anti-virus programs right now. They have nothing that's better than MSE. The ONE single thing I can think of that the other companies might have that's better are the researchers that work for those companies - you know the smart people who actually DISCOVER viruses... Well, the anti virus community is a very open group of scientists, and they do share everything, so once one of the anti-virus companies discover a new virus, they all know about it within hours.. Maybe minutes. So that isn't Really a factor anymore.

I often get asked if MSE is actually doing anything.. It RARELY pops up with any messages about it doing anything or needing updates... That's because it is 1) automatically updating itself, and 2) keeping quiet unless you REALLY need to know something. You see, the other paid-for anti-virus programs actually want to make sure you don't forget about them... They need you to be thinking about them when it comes time to send them another wad of cash... If you have the sensation that the anti-virus program hasn't done anything for you in a while, you might be apt to decide to just skip renewing your subscription to their service. The truth is your rarely need to actually interact with your antivirus program if all is going well. So, MSE, being free, doesn't ever nag you unless it's really something that needs your attention. That includes updating itself, which it really doesn't need your help to do ;)

As most of my friends and family know, I reall pay attention to the tech industry. As such, I'm really in-tune with what "the experts" say. And across the board, ALL of he experts I listen to say that MSE is currently the best anti-virus program you can use.

Another thing that I should mention is that if you have some other anti-virus program, like Symantec or Trend or whatever, and you take my advice and get MSE, PLEASE remember to uninstall those other guys' program... Remember, even if you're not paying them for updates, their program is still running and STILL slowin down your machine. At one point, Symantec/Norton Anti-virus was tested and proven to be the single biggest thing that slows your compute down I your running it.

So, friends and family, please go download and install MSE. It's free and it's the best.

Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve!

Macaroon! By Maul

If your playing World of Warcraft and you like to use macros, you NEED to be using Macaroon.

Macaroon is an action-bar replacement add-on that I'd just amazing. It can coexist with... or COMPLETELY replace blizzard's built in action-bar interface. The best part, however is that it gives you virtually unlimited macros.

Macaroon does support blizzard's concept of "action id's", but it also let's you attach a custom macro to any button you create with it, and you can create hundreds of buttons if you want.

I personally use it to create two rows of 32 buttons each on the bottom edge of my screen, and that's just for my bank of seldom used buttons...

For my main bank of buttons, I use 5 by 2 button grid that corresponds to the 10 keyboard-style buttons of my Nostromo n52... Yeah, that doesn't sound like much until you understand that those ten buttons change to another set of ten buttons if I hold down the Alt button, which I also have mapped on my Nostromo... And another ten buttons if I hold down the shift key, which is also bound on the Nostromo. Oh, and for good meshed, I get another ten buttons if I hold down alt and shift together. That's 40 action buttons each with it's own macro code.

But, it doesn't stop there... Because Macaroon is sophisticated enough to be stance sensitive... That means I can also have another 40 action buttons for being in Druid Bear Form, another 40 while in Cat Form, and even another 40 for being in stealth mode in cat form. I could do another 40 for each of travel form, aquatic form, or flight form, but that's just overkill...

Another feature that makes macaroon so cool is that you can create bars anywhere on the screen, in any size, number of rows, or columns you could want. The bars can be dual-spec sensitive, giving you a completely new set of bars automatically when you switch talents. You can even make bars hidden or auto-hide-unless-mouseover. That can be useful if you prefer to use the keyboard over clicking buttons, because macaroon supports binding keyboard buttons to any button, shown, hidden, or even in storage.

So thats my mini-review of Macaroon. Seriously, it Rawks.

- Posted on the run (iPhone)

Slow updates...

Yes, I'm still too slow at updates... Sorry.

Anyway, this weekend I was at the MLG event in Raleigh to watch Starcraft 2 be played in a tournament for the first time in the USA! I got to meet Husky, HD, and Day[9], along with several of the best players in the USA. It was awesome!

- Posted on the run (iPhone)

Digital media players

I'm planning to write a bit about digital media players in the near future.

Recently, I played with a WD TV HD Live player, and it was nice, but I didn't like it as much as the Asus O!play Air that I've been using for a while. The WD was nice, but in the end, it lacked just a few key features that were deal-breakers for me. Specifically, I couldn't get it to send Dolby Digital to my receiver
in bitstream format... I just couldn't find an option to change that, so I couldn't get it to play 5.1 surround over HDMI.

Second, I couldn't just plug in the HDMI jack and have it work (fault of the TV, I'm sure) and then unplug it, take to to the bedroom tv at night and plug it in as composite... I had to go into the menus and reconfigure it when I moved it... Something my wife ain't gonna do ;)

Lastly, it can do YouTube, but cant follow my YouTube subscriptions properly, making YouTube useless unless you like to watch totally random stuff. Personally, I like following certain sportscasters, and I just wan to find their most recent posts, but I just can't do it.

The O!play Air by Asus can do all of that except the YouTube thing, but I've been reading that they are adding it with a firmware update... That, and I can just use PlayOn for YouTube anyway.

More info later when I can post again!

- Posted on the run (iPhone)

Not even enough time for a 5 minute thought? Really?

Yeah, I've been having trouble getting enough time to even post a 5 minute thought.

I've started an online college course, and it's eating up pretty much every available minute of my time. Well, that and this massive project I'm working on at work, so I don't even have time during the day to post stuff. I'm still trying to do better, for those couple of people who actually read this stuff :P

Anyway, today I ordered a Western Digital WD TV HD Live box. I already have an Asus O!Play Air box that my father in law uses, so I decided to get something different for my second Digital Media Player. I'm very interested in the hack-ability of these things. For example, I know the O!Play air can be tweaked if you log into it via Telnet... For example, you can permanently link network drives to it as if they were local if you "mount" the drives in just the right way within the Linux file system that it runs... I expect I'll be able to mess around similarly with the WD box. I'll post a review after I have it here to play with it.

That's it for now, I'll try to get back tomorrow with more!

Today's 5 minute thought

Last night, I had a power outage. It was about 4 in the morning when the power went out, and it was out for about an hour.

I sleep with a CPAP machine to help me breathe. When the power goes out, I wake up. Drat. And I can't go back to sleep without it, try as I might. So, yeah - I know exactly how long the power was out.

Anyway, as I always do when the power goes out, I went around the house and unplugged all the computers from the electrical outlets. This is something we've had to do for years and years and years... All of us home tech guys. Because when the power comes back ON, there's no telling how many volts will be coming down the wire for that initial spike. It certainly isn't guaranteed to be 110 volts.

Anyway, today's thought - Unplug your computers when the power goes out. Better safe than sorry.