Jan
22

Easy Software Installation Online

WGHubris on January 22nd, 2012

Ninite is my favorite service on the entire internet. Essentially, it is a software installation service, but in reality, it is so much more.

For some reason, the auto-update feature of many software programs fails from time to time. On my computer, the number one culprit is the Thunderbird email client. I don’t think it properly tries to get admin permissions when it should and therefore the update doesn’t work. I think this is particularly true if Firefox (another Mozilla product) is already running. Whatever the recovery mechanism does, doesn’t work any better.

It gets so boggled that when I try and manually install it, from inside the program via the Help menu, or by downloading and re-running the installed from Mozilla, it STILL doesn’t work.

Ninite Review – Online Software Install Service

Enter Ninite. I can go to www.ninite.com and click Thunderbird (and a bunch of other software, if I want) and get an installer. When I run the installer, it checks to see if I already have the software, and if so, it updates the installation. Whatever process Ninite uses, it doesn’t get hung up in the same way as the official Mozilla installer, most likely because it does not bother with whatever version check or recovery file the original erred installation generated. It just goes in and updates all the files, without any checking or asking.

Which, brings me to the other amazing thing about Ninite. The installers are all fully automated. There is no user interaction required. The defaults are all used for a new install, or the update leaves all of your previous settings intact. Obviously, if you want to do some customizing, this isn’t the route for you, but in 90 percent of the cases when I install software, I just click Next, Next, Next, Finish, anyway.

There is one exception. When I install software with toolbars, or that wants to make Bing my default search engine, or whatever, I click NO. Sometimes, developers get tricky and that isn’t enough. Foxit Reader, a PDF reader, pulled a stunt like that a while back where you had to make some very unintuitive clicks to avoid getting some junkware toolbar with your installation. Fortunately, Ninite is run by good guys, for good guys. All toolbars and other extra software, no matter how “valuable” are automatically declined with a Ninite installation.

Ninite Tips and Tricks

At this point, Ninite is already a golden member of the Go-To online service club, but wait– there’s more :)

Ninite does more than just install one software program. Using the super simple check box interface, you can select one, two or even dozens of software packages to install. The file Ninite delivers will install all of the selected software with a single execution and not a single second of user intervention. This comes in very handy to install lots of software on a new computer or to re-install a ton of programs on a restored machine.

It gets even better. Remember how I said that if you already have the software installed then Ninite will just update it for you? Well that works for multiple software installations as well. So if Thunderbird is updating, but Spotify is new, Ninite knows enough to update Thunderbird and do a new installation of Spotify, again with no user interaction.

Now, here is the best software upgrade method you will ever use. Create a Ninite installer of all your usual software programs. Save that file to your desktop, or other handy spot on your computer. Now, just run that installer every so often to keep ALL of your software up to date, with no hassle and no junk toolbars other other garbage. Any software already running the current version is just skipped. You don’t have to create a new Ninite installer file. The installer automatically connects, downloads and installs the most recent version of software available.

For example, if you update Java via the package from Oracle, you’ll get a vampire process installed on your computer that runs at startup and keeps running 24 hours per day, seven days per week. It’s sole function is to occasionally check for Java updates. Turning it off takes a lot more than you might think thanks to a bug that prevents you from turning off the Java updater unless you manually launch it with admin privileges. The problem is, once you kill it, it will come back with EVERY SINGLE UPDATE. But, if you update via Ninite, they’ll keep that little junkware app from re-installing on your computer.

Obviously, Ninite only works with free or open-source software, but that covers a lot of ground on my machine, ranging from web browsers to email clients, to image viewers to developer tools. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s Windows Live suite isn’t available which means you’ll have to watch out for seaport.exe getting installed and then kill Seaport on your own.

Give Ninite a try, you won’t be sorry.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Software No comments »
Nov
14

Black Friday Sales Scams

WGHubris on November 14th, 2011

It happens every year like clockwork. Big retailers generate sales ads with “unbelievable” savings on items that shoppers want to buy. Then, why do so many customers end up burned on Black Friday?

Black Friday Tricks

black-friday-scamsThe oldest Black Friday scam in the book is the super-limited inventory scam. This is the same scam that car dealers use in their advertisements. Sure, you can get a 2012 Ford F-150 for no money down and just $99 per month, the thing is, there is only one make and model and options package that gets you that price and there aren’t any of them left. How would you like a new truck for $2,500 down and $299 a month instead?

It is illegal to advertise items that the retailer does not carry or never has in stock. These laws are the result of the old, now illegal, bait and switch scam where retailers would advertise an item that they did not ever have any intention of selling in order to get suckers customers into the store. Then, the shoppers would be offered a different, more profitable item in its place.

However, those laws are easily circumvented by having a very limited inventory of sale items. Some stores go so far — out of legal obligation or otherwise — to mention just how few of an item they have in stock. Many ads will say something like “Minimum of 4 per store,” or something like that. In other words, unless you camp out, get in the front of the line, go straight to the items without getting waylaid, and grab them right away, you cannot get that price. Some retailers only have ONE of those items in stock.

Here comes tax season. Check here for the 2011 standard deduction and other tax information.

When a store knows there will be demand for HUNDREDS of the item at that price, the only reason to have so few in stock is to ensure that only a handful of customers get the items. The next week, after the sale ends, there will be dozens in every store, or easy availability for ordering online. This turns the sale into a lottery where only the lucky few can “win” the sale price.

Crappy Black Friday Sales

Retailers know that customers want to nab great deals on Black Friday. Some shoppers are naïve enough to think that every Black Friday sale is a great Black Friday sale. Retailers prey on these unsavvy shoppers by advertising items at the normal sale prices, that is the sale price that was available last month, and will probably be available again within a few weeks.

Be sure to at least check the price of the item at a competing store or online at a major retailer like Amazon.com before leaping to buy that “cheap” television set on the front page of that electronics store ad. Chances are good that the price isn’t that great after all.

Black Friday Item Replacement Tricks

A favorite in the electronics and computer industry, with this scam retailers sell and item that is similar but very different from the item you think you are getting. Computers with less memory, or RAM, than would typically come inside of that level of computer are one good example of this scam.

Another favorite are television sets that have similar make and model numbers but that are just different enough to be cheaper thanks to inferior or missing components. Something like a 65″ Sony LCD TV  that has the previous model’s insides but the current model’s case and remote would be one example.

Some retailers and manufacturers go so far as to make different model numbers for each retailer in order to be as devious as possible. Instead of the highly rated and well reviewed MSC99381D model, store will offer a lower quality, cheaper MSC99381O model on Black Friday where unsuspecting customers will purchase and assume that they got the same item for a great price.

Avoid Black Friday Sales Scams

The best way to avoid Black Friday sales scams is to research before heading out to go shopping. Many retailers have released their ads online this year to avoid having them leaked by internet deal websites. Google your holiday items and be very careful to not the exact model numbers to avoid any surprises. Also, check the pricing on Amazon to be sure you aren’t getting a phony sale price. Finally, check out deal websites like slickdeals.net or gottadeal.com to find out what deals are really hot and which deals are no.

Tags: , , , ,

Business No comments »
Oct
19

Google Abusing Monopoly Power?

WGHubris on October 19th, 2011

Recent Senate hearings focused on whether or not Google was abusing its power as a de facto monopoly in internet searches. Google executives testified that they do not cook the search results that the Google algorithm generates to favor their own internet properties, nor do they punish those with competing web services.

legal-monopolyWhile Google’s hands may (or may not) be pretty clean in these respects, the company continues to press ahead with initiatives that may be more likely to generate the kind of legitimate, hard evidence, formal complaints that regulators will use to exert control over Google’s stranglehold on the internet search process.

Google Linking Product Usage

One of the things the legal system hates to see is when giant companies use their power to force services or products upon other companies or consumers. This not only limits innovation, it costs other potentially powerful businesses in ways that neither politicians nor judges approve of. Intel, for example, was forced to refine the way it sells computer chips after forcing manufacturers to accept terms that made it impossible to use AMD chips, even if they were better for a specific usage.

Google has made a subtle change to the way they handle results from their dominate search platform. Although the company claims it is making the changes for privacy reasons, there is an exception big enough to drive a truck through that points directly to the beginnings of tying less dominant products to the company’s monopoly product in order to stifle competition.

Users logged into Google will have their searches encrypted by default. On the surface, this sounds perfectly reasonable. However, what this means is that the owners of websites visited by users from searches will not longer be able to see what the exact keywords were that led to the visitor finding the website.

For example, these days, if someone searches for freelance writer and they end up on my freelance writing website at ArcticLlama.com, I get a report that says the user came to my website from Google and that the search that led him to my website was freelance writer. This is useful information for me, because it shows why and how people end up at my website. It can also offer a reason for unexpected things that happen.

My freelance writing business is named ArcticLlama, so when I found a funny joke in the form a Llama Font, I wrote a little post about it and put it up on my website. A month or two later my site got a lot of extra traffic. Since I hadn’t done anything, that I was aware of, out of the ordinary, I wondered why there were more traffic to my website. Had a popular website linked to me? Was there an article I wrote that went viral? Was there a serial killer our there with the same name? Had Brian Nelson just won a million dollars and people were desperately trying to find me?

As it turns out, it had nothing to do with me after all. Upon looking at my traffic logs and Google Analytics, I was able to see that one of the top keywords for users coming from search engines was "llama font". The joke font had gotten popular and people were finding my article about it on Google. It was good information to know so that I didn’t make wrong assumptions.

As a website owner I have no inalienable right to a person’s search keywords per se, and therefore, Google’s decision to encrypt outgoing traffic in such a way that I will no longer see why keywords bring visitors to my website isn’t something that I have any standing to complain about, except Google isn’t doing it properly.

Instead, Google has a very big exception to the rule. If you are a paying advertiser on Google and someone comes to your website from a Google search, then the company gladly hands over the keywords that brought that user to your website.

In other words, If you buy something from Google, then Google will give you something free that no one else can give you and that no one else gets unless they buy from Google AdWords.

Note to Senate committee: If you don’t want to look like you are just chasing after the biggest kid on the block for no reason, start paying attention to these kinds of things. Keywords are valuable SEARCH information and Google just locked them down so that only the people who buy from Google’s ADVERTISING group are allowed to see them. Vertical integration by monopolies is a no no.

Tags: , ,

Search No comments »
Oct
14

Primary Election Stupidity

WGHubris on October 14th, 2011

In 2008, it was the Democrat’s fault. Some states sought to bolster their impact in choosing the Democratic Presidential nominee by moving up their primaries to become one of the “early” primaries. The most dramatic and meaningful of these decisions was Michigan’s move up so early in the calendar that the state was penalized by losing all of its nominating delegates. Michigan did it anyway, because no matter what you see in the movies, both party’s presidential nominee is already selected by the time the convention rolls around. The votes at the nominating convention are, for all intents and purposes, worthless.

president-primary-electionIn 2008, however, things were different. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took much longer than usual to sort out. By the time it was said and done, it turns out that Michigan’s delegates would have mattered, and might have affected the outcome. Of course, by then, nothing could be done because the candidates had skipped campaigning in the state with worthless delegates.

This year, it is the Republicans turn to be jackasses. The GOP apparently, isn’t tough enough to enforce its rules (or has learned from the Democrat’s mess less time) with any sort of penalties, so various states have taken it upon themselves to move up their primaries. This in turn makes the states that are “supposed” to have the early primaries move their elections up even further in order to stay in the front of the line.

The result of all this jockeying is that New Hampshire may end up having its primary in December, and thus, Iowa may end up having its in December, or even November, an entire year before the actual election, next fall.

Presidential Primary Reform

No politician is willing to talk about primary reform because there is always the chance that they may one day be running for President and there is no way quicker to lose Iowa or New Hampshire than to suggest that those states somehow are not entitled by God himself to be the first contests of any Presidential nominating process.

Of course, those claims are absurd. There is nothing special about Iowa or New Hampshire, or any other state, that makes them more entitled to being the first nominating contest.

It’s too late to do anything about it for this election season, but after the next Presidential election is over (well over a year away, mind you) it is time to go out and get real meaningful Presidential primary campaign reform.

A system where the first five slots are rotated among all 50 states would be the most fair. But, the most important thing is to get a drop dread, no nonsense start date. That start date should be no earlier than March of the same year the election is held. That is plenty of time for a real contest to occur and be settled before the general election.

The Democrat’s idea to strip states who start too soon of delegates seems like a good starting point. I’d go so far as to say that any member of the party in a state that moves its primary or caucus before the start date before the sanctioned start date will be barred until the next Presidential election from serving at the executive level of the national party. That might undercut the party votes that move these contests up.

In the meantime, some clever state (especially the bigger ones with more delegates) might want to consider the power lever that may exist near the end of the nominating contest. Imagine if in 2008, Michigan had moved its primary to the end of the nominating contest. The state would have been in the position of choosing the nominee, not just in position to “set the tone” as many of the earlier states are attempting to do.

Tags: ,

News No comments »