Koozie Notes

Texas Requires Computer Repair Shops and Techs to obtain PI License

The Institute for Justice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of computer repair shops who are being told they must have a Private Investigator License to preform certain types of computer repair.  Others are covering this story as well.

•     Lawsuit says every repair technician in Texas must have private investigator's license

•     Licenses are obtained with criminal justice degree or 3 year apprenticeship

•     Violators can face up to a 4K fine and 1 year in jail

Slashdot has some good discussion on the issue, and cite the actual content of the Texas Law.  I'm sure we will here more of this in the future.

-Chris

*UPDATE* 10 JUL 2008

Slashdot has a new post with updates on this issue. 

But rooting around in the guts of a computer to discover the cause of a malware infection is different from rooting around in the guts of a computer to discover infidelity.  However, instead of making the criteria of “investigation” the purpose and use to which the information could be put, the law makes the criteria the way that the information is stored – “computer-based data not available to the public.”  The end result is that the net was cast too widely.

-Chris

New Mac Pro

I finally replaced my aging -- in computer year, I find six years to be plenty -- Windows XP computer with a New Mac Pro.  As one can imagine, I've spent the last few evenings trying to copy over all of my photos, files, email, etc. to the new machine.  Needless to say, I've spent a fair amount of time searching on how to move certain things around, especially converting email from several account into Apple's mail.

This evening, I working on setting up my podcasts, and moving over some digital pictures that were left on my camera.

And I'm still trying to get use to the new keyboard.

--Chris

Kindle Reading

On Tuesday, my new gadget arrived, the Amazon Kindle and overall I'm impressed.

Over the last few weeks, I've been mulling over whether I should drop $400.00 on e-book reader and it took me some time to finally get up the nerve to make the leap.  The final straw for me? --- Newspaper subscriptions.

Before Tuesday, I had two (2) newspaper subscriptions delivered to my home.  The Wall Street Journal gets delivered Mon-Sat and I take the Austin American Statesman on Sundays only.  By switching to the Amazon Kindle, my annual subscriptions for these two (2) papers drops from $332 to $192.  And I get to enjoy the convenience of not reading an occasional wet paper.  As an added bonus, I don't have to worry about recycling the mountains of used newspaper that collect in my home.

Even though I find reading on my Kindle pleasant, I really haven't found a good rhythm for skimming newspaper articles.  However, I did find another Kindle advantage -- I no longer have to jump to page A16 to continue reading an article.

--Chris

UPDATE: 27 MAY 2008

Finished reading Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver," the first of a trilogy this past Monday on the Kindle.  Really enjoyed it but I found it a bit hard to read some of the maps and family trees.  I plan on taking a break before reading the second book, "The Confusion"

Mac Printing Issues on 10.5.2

This evening I was banging my head against a wall trying to figure out why I couldn't print to my HP LJ1200 printer over TCP/IP from my new Powerbook with OSX, version 10.5.2.   I finally stumbled on to this thread from Apple Support, and found the missing ingredient:  Add "LP" for the queue name.

Now, when one sets up a new printer under Leopard, you begin with system preference and printer& fax.  After clicking on the "+" sign to add a new printer, I elected LPD for protocol box.  Next, I enter in the IP address for my HP printer.  After that, you come to the third item, queue name.  For some reason, Apple has the statement "Leave blank for default queue." right under this box.  When I left it blank, my print jobs kept stalling.  I tried different drivers, differnt options, but nothing worked. 

Finally, I deleted all my printers and started over.  This time I entered "LP" as the queue and guess what? I'm printing.  By the way, this solution worked with the generic postscript printer and the HP LJ 1200 drivers as well.

-Chris

New, Cheaper HD Tivo?

Reports are coming out that Tivo may be releasing a more reasonible price HD Tivo soon.  I first caught wind of this story on Slashdot, but Ars Techinca published the scoop.

[T]o summarize, the S3L loses some of the finer points of the regular Series 3, namely the OLED display, the fancier remote, and THX certification. There's also a 90GB drop in HD size which shaves more than 10 hours of HD recording time off of the device.  Are these things worth the $300+ price delta compared to the regular Series 3?

So a question remains.  Will Tivo offer lifetime service?  I currently have two (2) series 2 with lifetime service and prefer it over paying a monthly service fee.

-Chris

iPhone Giveaway

While running some errands during lunch today, I heard on the radio that Rush Limbaugh's radio program will be giving away 10 iPhones with ATT&T 450 service plan when you signup on his website, www.rushlimbaugh.com.

For everybody who wins an iPhone, we're buying you a two-year service contract with AT&T.  We will send you a check, roughly $1500, that will cover the cost of a two-year contract, which is mandatory.  You have to sign up for two years with AT&T when you get an iPhone.  So you'll get the $1500 check, you'll get the iPhone, you're going to get a year subscription to Rush 24/7, and if you're a current subscriber, we'll extend your subscription by a year so that you can make full use of the podcasting capacity of the site in conjunction with the phone.

[iPhone giveaway rules & regulations]

-Chris

Did You Wipe the Drive on that Recycled Computer?

This morning I read an article by Denise Dubie promoting corporate data protection when it comes to recycling or disposing of old computers. 

Getting rid of obsolete IT gear isn’t as simple as it used to be. The threat of data loss, coupled with increasingly stringent environmental regulations, has IT pros rethinking their disposal methods.

When people ask me for my preferred tool for drive wiping, I still point them over to Darik's Boot & Nuke "DBAN", which is a great utility for wiping drives.  They have bootable versions available for floppy, USB thumb drives, and the popular CD/DVD iso formats.

-Chris

Netflix Movie Downloading

Looks like Netflix has clarified comments made by one of its employee regarding their "Movie Download" service.

In response to recent speculative reports, Netflix today clarified remarks made by one of its employees at a film industry meeting last week.

In remarks during a panel discussion at a meeting of the Independent Film & Television Alliance on Friday, June 16, 2006, Eric Besner, a member of the Netflix content acquisition organization, said that Netflix is developing a proprietary set-top box that would allow subscribers to download movies for viewing on their television sets.

Netflix said that Besner’s comments have subsequently been interpreted to suggest that Netflix has narrowed its downloading strategy to a set-top box product. In fact, Netflix is evaluating a broad range of options, and no decisions have been made regarding specific delivery options or timing. Netflix had earlier indicated that it would discuss its downloading plans more fully in its fourth-quarter earnings announcement in January 2007 and that it is investing $5 to 10 million this year in developing its approach to on-line movie delivery.

-Chris

Wiping a drive: The Fast Way

(via Digg)  Researchers have developed a prototype that can securely erase hard drives in minutes.  I would love to have something like this at the office. :-)

-Chris

HP12C Calculator 25th Anniversary

While reading the WSJ web site this morning, I clicked on an online advertisement for the 25th Anniversary for the HP 12C calculator. 

Currently, the HP 12C is my calculator of choice.  Even though it is 25 years old, it does everything I need for everyday calculations.  [HP 12C at Amazon]

-Chris