I was talking to a chiropractor a while ago. She’d said that it was important to get up and walk or do excercises regularly if you sit in front of the computer for hours. The ideal is to get up and walk around a bit every 20 minutes (and maybe do excercises like neck rolls etc). If you don’t remember to do that, at least go for a 15 minute serious walk one or two times per day.

I made a crack comment about gamers. I’ve got friends who are gamers, and I know they sit for hours on end without getting up. And some do allnighters, especially if their league is in another time zone.

She said parents came to her, with or without their children, distraught about their kids’ health. Serious gamers, and with back problems at a young age.

So I made another crack - with kids, walking around isn’t going to cut it. It’s too dull. How about another game? Buy a dance mat? (Originally developed for Playstation 1&2, there are also versions for the computer) See youtube video of an arcade version, you can have fun even if you’re not good at it!

She flipped over the idea, and is now thinking of getting one for her 8 year old daughter!

BTW, if you decide to get one for yourself check on quality before you buy. A grown up may want a metal or hard plastic version, not those things that slide around. Oh, and a mother who had a seriously hyper 4 year old said the dance mat was the only thing that could tire her kid. After watching this five year old pro, I can believe it.

So, kids, parents, grown up computer addicts: Get moving, before you develop serious problems. I saw a net friend had written a recommendation for a physical therapist recently. I assume his computer use had been at least part of the cause for several surgeries and other back and neck issues. This therapist was working with stuff he could use at home - personally, I like the big excercise balls you sit on (see sissel-online for excercises, or even better, look up an excercise class locally). Great for core strength - fixing up abs and back, so you’re stronger and less likely to get injured. Also, MBT shoes are great for posture or back problems - and especially for store clerks who need to stand around all day.

Personally, I have amassed quite a bit of home equipment over the years. My favorite is the treadmill. Norwegian winters are harsh, and with that thing, I don’t have to worry about slipping and falling, and can walk or run at any speed I want.

I was called in to check on a friend’s WiFi setup. I couldn’t get it to work, and finally told him it looked as though the wireless on his router was fried. I asked him to check the router and continue troubleshooting.

He roped in a friend to help him, and had the friend set up the router at his place. It worked. They took it back, it didn’t work. So obviously, the wireless wasn’t fried. Something was wrong with the location.

So they removed power to circuit after circuit in the house, before walking into the living room. The friend asked “What’s that?”, and pointed to their wireless Audio-Video link. It connected the TV in the living room with the TV in the kitchen, so they didn’t need more than one set top box. When they powered down the AV link, WiFi worked.

They solved their problem by setting the AV link to another frequency. It had a choice of four settings. It had been set on one, and that was apparently the same frequency as the Wifi router.

So, AV links can create interference that makes your Wifi router seem dead. Food for thought!

Sometimes it gets rather funny.

I was talking to a customer who thought my mailserver had “a moment” and rejected his mails. Turns out it was his computer that had “a moment”.

And in the conversation, I mentioned that Outlook can sometimes be a bit temperamental. And he said, yeah, he uses Thunderbird at home. And I said, heh, I use Pegasus mail. And he said he’d heard of that program when he was studying IT a long time ago.

A little game of “mine is longer than yours” relating to e-mail programs.

And Pegasus really is the safest alternative, unless you want to get dirty and use Pine or similar…

So there…

This trick is for WinXP. I haven’t tried other versions.

Occasionally, we get customers that don’t have Windows CD’s. Some never had them, and some have imaginative stories as to whose fault it is they don’t.

These days most computers have the license key on a sticker on the computer itself, so that bit is (usually) covered. If it’s not on there, then at least WRITE IT ON THERE when you get the machine. A CD marker or a face down sticker might work.

But an OEM license doesn’t work with a non-OEM CD. So just plonking any windows CD in the CD-player won’t work. So what to do?

You could try finding a Fujitsu Siemens owner with the same windows version as you have (home or professional). The recovery CD doesn’t have any drivers on it, and will accept your own license key.

Hopefully some above average end user will appreciate this tip from the trenches…

If you’ve got a qmail server with a large number of users spread out over hundreds of domains, how will you figure out how many users you have? I don’t know of any official way, but there are ways to guesstimate.

Let’s say you’re using vpopmail. Let’s say there’s a file called lastauth - telling you when each user last checked e-mail and from what IP address.

Then you could get a guesstimate of the number of users by doing this:
find /home/vpopmail/domains | grep lastauth > yourfile

This will take quite a while, if you’ve got many users.

Then check number of lines in that file, by typing:
wc -l yourfile

Finally remove yourfile

And no, I don’t provide support on this. This is for qmail admins, not regular users.

I need a shower. Upgrading the processor can get fairly physical, if said processor is of the Penitum III, Slot 1 variety, and you need to change the heatsink. Word to the wise, don’t give up even if the screws don’t pop off right away. You may need to use some force…

I needed to upgrade the bios to get the new processor to take (Pentium II 400 HMz is a bit slow with SimplyMepis, a Pentium III 600 would hopefully mean a performance boost, and the new processor was a spare part…), and had Linux on the machine. Which means the bios upgrade was the wrong operating system. No problem, just boot from a win95 or thereabouts boot floppy, then do the upgrade from a floppy.

But of course, I started the computer thinking the board would autodetect the new processor. Luckily I saw it didn’t have the right frequency and powered down to read the motherboard manual. After changing some dipswitches, I was good to go.

The intended user is reading newspapers right now, and is confirming that the machine is faster. BTW, a good idea for “newspaper reader users” is to have all their links on their browser’s home page. Less stuff to learn in the beginning. And a few icons on an uncluttered desktop for the one or two programs they use, easily marked (Internet browser is better than Firefox or Internet Explorer. Write Letter is better than Word or Text Editor).

Mission accomplished.

I have a tiny laptop that’s too old for any other windows edition than win98.

Problem is I never got any wlan card to work on it. Finally I was desperate enough to try alternate solutions (who wants to lug 3 kg around when you could lug less than 1 kg?). Here’s something that might work for you if you’re in the same predicament. Just remember you’re doing this at your own risk.

This relates to machines with Windows 98 first edition. The version of Ndis.vxd changed from first edition to Win98SE. The card requires the version that came with Windows 98 Second Edition.

To fix (and it might break something else, so beware), download the right language file from this page:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q243199/

Then save it to some location, open a dos prompt and type:
243199us8.exe /c /t:a:\

Change folder to the one you’ve got the file in (cd nameoffolder, cd .. to go up a notch etc). Replace the file name here with your language version. The /t is the location it zips the files out to. Right here it’s set to the floppy drive, but it could easily be c:\drivers\ or something else.

Then the safe way is probably to do as described in this newsgroup thread, but I simply renamed the old Ndis.vxd in thec:\windows\system\ folder, and pasted the new version in. It worked for me, but I haven’t tried a second time, so no guarantees.

All of this was done after the card was installed, and I found a yellow exclamation mark in the hardware list, and found the driver complained about Ndis.vxd and Ntkern.vxd. Replacing the first file was enough to make it work.

I’d actually love to install Linux on it instead. Damn Small Linux would be about right, if I could get the wlan card to work on it? But I’ll leave that for another day.

I often see clients struggling with trackpads on their laptops, and it gets me every time.

Why not get a small mouse to go with it, instead of contorting your hands with those trackpads?

OK, so maybe lugging a mouse with you doesn’t appeal to you, since a laptop is portable and it’s more weight and bulk. But really, have you SEEN how small the travel mice are these dasy?

I’ve got a Logitech one I wouldn’t be caught without!

I was even at a customer’s house when his cordless mouse gave out, and using keyboard shortcuts gets real old, real fast. So I got my little mouse out of my car, and was good to go in a few minutes!

Check out mine:

It’s about the size of the palm of my hand.

I’ve been meaning to write this one for quite some time.

What’s on YOUR keychain?

I’ve had useful stuff on mine for a long time now. I only keep two keys on there (car and apartment), so it’s way too small and I’d lose it unless I had something weighty on there.

For a few years I had a mini Maglite torch

But then I got a cell phone with a flashlight, so I removed it and put a mini leatherman knockoff on there.

Then i lost that one, and had a regular pocket knife for a while.

Finally I switched cell phones (anyone else get tired of using the same for more than a year?), and once again needed a flashlight handy.

This time I find a mini leatherman knockoff locally, with a mini led torch hidden in one of the handles. It’s slightly larger than I like, and comes in a small pouch, but I’d rather be caught WITH a Phillips screwdriver and a torch, than without…

So, what’s on your keychain?

And since so many geeks would say: USB thumbdrive, I’ve included a link to a discussion about what geeks keep on it:
What’s on your USB drive
The main link there is to a list that’s wonderful for IT support people. It’s just amazing how poor shape regular users leave their computers in, and I think I need a larger thumbdrive in order to be able to fit all this stuff:
http://www.miketechshow.com/2005/09/mike-tech-show-podcast-30-09-24-05.html

Finally, I think the time for me to only have a USB thumbdrive is over (or even worse, I usually only have an MP3 player filled with music).

I think I need to get my boss to shell out for one of these:
eMagic hard drive enclosure

There’s an ant problem here. I find them crawling all over me, and over and into the computer.

Last night the DVD burner started producing coasters. I was burning CD’s at the time, and not the highest quality either. So I can’t be sure of any conclusions.

I did check the underside of the discs before burning though.

One of the discs had some sort of smearing on the underside.

I just wonder…

Fried ant?