This rig has quite a few USB ports, eight I think — 2 in the front (up top), and 6 at the back. My keyboard and mouse are USB connected to two of the back ports.

Both front ports work since we (Mike & I) have used USB keys on this from day one.

So in away, I don’t need a hub. But, I had a spare hub. I got one, a Saitek, with color-changing LED, for free, from newegg.com with something that I bought. Maybe it was the power supply.

I had plugged it in a few days ago. Got a message to say that a ‘Generic Hub’ was recognized and successfully installed. I didn’t bother to plug anything in.

I plugged my USB key into the hub for the first time today. NOTHING.

Messed around. Tried all the ports. Tried my new Sony Walkman MP3 player. Nothing.

Being the consummate professional, I then tried the USB key on all the ports without the hub. Worked fine, each time.

Through Device Manager got Windows 7 to check for driver updates. Said I had the latest … but it was from 2006! Hhhmmm.

I then tried a Belkin F5U407 (which I ‘borrowed’ from my wife’s PC).

Nothing. Windows 7 won’t even recognize it as a HUB!

Yes, I visited Belkin. No drivers.

Yes, I Googled. It appears that others have had Windows 7 driver problems with USB devices. In a way I am lucky. All the USB ports seem to work.

Well, I am hoping Mike can solve this mystery. It looks like a driver issue.

I will keep YOU posted. Cheers.

Anura Guruge
www.guruge.com

None it would seem. Clearing out some shelves of old computer equipment today I was planning to put some of the more useful items up on ebay – each for a penny in case anyone out there has a use for a little network hub or a parallel printer cable and some other bits.

A quick search (of ebay) seems to indicate that there will be few if any takers though. We’ll see if freecycle is any better, but ultimately I expect to be taking some perfectly good CPU fans (never used), a 4 year old wireless print-server (which was a pain to configure), three parallel printer cables and various other old bits of kit down to the local tip/recycling centre.

Shame, but then it’s out-dated, slow, or just plain incompatible. It seems such a waste. Chances are another Iomega zip drive will be on its way to silicon heaven very soon.

If you’re looking for cheap Python programming books – I am trying to recycle those too. It’s probably too late for the CD’s I chucked out. If you were looking for (un-opened) Microsoft Works 2000 – sorry, the rubbish is picked up this Tuesday.

Update 25/11/09: The answer to whether parallel printer cables have any use these days is still ‘No’, but most of the other bits got picked up on Freecycle. Search for your local Freecycle group here – http://groups.yahoo.com/ (much faster to access than through www.freecycle.org)

Then shall I begin………….No this is not Listen With Mother but it is about whether you are sitting correctly at your PC or Laptop.

I have been doing some work on my Laptop recently and found that I have had some neck strain because with a Laptop you have to look down at the screen.  It is not very ergonomic and then I discovered you can get Laptop stands which lift the screen to make it more user friendly.

You can also get Copyholders to hold paper next to your PC/Laptop on a stand or you can get a clip to attach to your PC/Laptop instead.  This will help when you are inputting information onto the PC/Laptop.  For your wrist when working with a PC you could also get a gel mouse pad to ease the strain.

Some of the ones to shop for are:

• Kensington Easy Rider Stand for Laptop
• Fellowes Easel Copyholder for your Laptop/PC
• Kensington Flexclip Copyholder for your PC
• Belkin Waverest Gel Mouse Pad

Of course you should also take regular breaks and if you can - do some neck and arm exercises to loosen your muscles.

Happy working!

The 6′ 4 pin to 6 pin Belkin IEEE 1394/Firewire cable does exactly what it says it should for relatively cheap. As long as you’re at the 400 MB/s standard as this is, there’s no need to spend $50 on a gold plated connector and superheavy isolation like the Monster cables. Firewire is designed to function up to 15′ without signal degradation, and unlike analog signals the 0 and 1s of digital signals aren’t subject to manipulation by electrical fields. Either they get through or they don’t, so as long as these are certified under the standard you save money by not buying useless frills. It’s shiny translucent silver, not black, but if you care that much about cable color you probably already have your cables hidden anyway.

The 4 pin models work with most electrical powered devices; the 6 pin models usually are for devices that need battery power. (The extra two pins carry current.) For those looking for an adapter for Comcast/Motorola HDTV-ready digital boxes, this is the cable you need. For some reason Motorola decided to use a 6 pin adapter, where almost all HDTVs and DVHS VCRs use a 4 pin. (PCs typically use 6.) I’ve used one for a while now to run flawless 1080i signals between my Comcast HDTV box and my DVHS VCR. Recommended.

This Belkin 6′ IEEE 1394 cable is a very solid cable, with a male 4-pin (“i.Link”) connector on one end and a male 6-pin (“Firewire”) connector on the other. It supports the full speed (400Mbps) of the IEEE 1394 specification, and looks durable.

You should beware of the no free shipping policy on this cable when sold by Amazon — it does not count toward the $25 free shipping promotion. I used 1-click to order this and was charged close to six bucks for shipping. Ouch. Still, the total was much less than the cheapest price elsewhere, on the web or in stores.

Wow, just as I started writing this, GAME emailed me telling me that Modern Warfare 2 has been dispatched to me. Seeing as they upgraded me to courier delivery (for free, nonetheless), it should be here by tomorrow (Saturday), or Monday at the latest. Hehehe. So much for Postal Strikes.

Played the Left 4 Dead 2 demo last night. For some reason, XBL wasn’t letting me party up with Alex. I had a feeling it was my NAT type, seeing as it’s set to Moderate. So after about half an hour of screwing around with my router, I managed to get it to open.

Quick record of how to set the NAT Type to Open so it works on the XBOX 360:

Router: Belkin N1 Vision
How: Login to router control panel (192.168.2.1), then make sure UPnP is enabled. That’s under system settings, at the bottom of the menu on the left.
Then, go to the DMZ menu and set any IP to be in the DMZ. This places the one device that is on the IP you enter will not be protected by your firewall, so never want a computer to be in the DMZ. So I recommend using a fairly high number, up to the maximum your router allows. By default, my N1 Vision has a range between 2 and 99, so I’d pick any IP between 50 and 99 to make sure none of my computers accidentally end up in the DMZ.
Then go to your XBOX network settings and manually set the IP to the one you entered in the DMZ and put your routers IP in the default gateway (192.168.2.1).
Reboot the router AND the XBOX then test your connection again.

Personal

Okay, now for the weird stuff.
I had a crazy dream last night. Firstly, I was in an airport, but it was college. But there were people there who were there for the airport, not the college. Anyway, I had to hit the showers after some sort of match (I’m on a sports team? o_O).

I was the last one out the showers, bar the coach who was yelling at me for taking so long. I left in such a hurry, I forgot my towel, so I went back to wrap it around me. The shower rooms are at the far end of the toilets, and the toilets are shaped as an arrowhead. One side of the head is the mens and the other is for women, but there are no doors. Given the number of mirrors there, was also possible for someone standing in the right place to see in to the opposite side. Major design fail. xD

So, I had my towel wrapped around me and I’m about to leave, when I overshoot the exit and walk into the womens side. There’s a woman there standing and pissing into one of those toilets on the wall that you find in public places. She hissed “man” at me as if to curse at me, so I replied “hermaphrodite” and walked away. Come on, she was pissing standing up!

Somehow, I was almost fully dressed as I walked away, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. As I exited the bathrooms, I went through another wardrobe change as I was fully dressed in a black suit. So I head towards “Arrivals and Departures” and come to a corridor. The entrance is half blocked by a signboard, and there were 4 girls in front of me. 2 of them I recognised from school: Komrun and Faisen. Faisen was in the top 5 hottest girls in my year group.
So Komrun ducks under the signboard and gets through, So do the two I didn’t recognise. Faisen, however, didn’t duck low enough and smacked her head. The way she bounced back and the signboard shook just forced me to laugh. You know, those very short “hehehe” laughs that just manage to escape before you can stop it. I quickly said sorry and ran off before she could see who I was, but when I woke up, I was laughing so hard about it.

But, naturally, I remembered something that just had to be a buzz kill. That building was one I’ve imagined before. Structurally it was different, and it was an airport this time rather than a ceremonial hall, but the DNA of the building was the same. The last time I was in that building, it wasn’t such a fun dream. That was back when I used to get nightmares.

Getreu der Apple-Philosophie, dass ein Mac eben etwas Besonderes ist und auch zumindest ein paar spezielle Kabel verdient hat, hat man sich für den neuen 27-Zoll-iMac offenbar auch etwas einfallen lassen, das verhindert, dass er “einfach so” als Monitor verwendet werden kann.

Wer das tun möchte, muss sich erst einmal ein Spezialkabel von Belkin besorgen, das Apple freundlicherweise aber auch anbietet.Selbst wenn die richtigen Mini DisplayPort-Adapter von Apple verwendet werden, kommt man mit herkömmlichen HDMI- oder DVI-Kabeln nicht weiter, wenn man etwa ein MacBook an den iMac anschließen will, wie Cult of Mac berichtet.

Einzig und allein ein Kabel von Belkin scheint den gewünschten Effekt des Großbilds zu zeitigen, und das wiederum hat seinen Preis: 29,99 Dollar. Schön, wenn man sich in diesen harten Zeiten so ein bisschen was was dazuverdienen kann. [dieter]

[via Cult of Mac]

Bhavin, who writes as the Man from Matunga, in Mumbai Mirror, has in the last few weeks, covered more than one service level issues, with brands. That in his once-a-week column, he finds it worthwhile to cover these so frequently can only indicate a high frequency of such events!

And don’t we all know?

Let me recount an episode that I am still in the middle of.

My Linksys Wi-Fi router at home, finally called it a day, after a good 4-5 years. I went shopping for a replacement, and found at Staples, besides Linksys, the Belkin brand. Being cheaper for nearly the same specs, I took a view on the brand from my brother, and after getting a strong validation, I purchased the Belkin N Series Wi-Fi router.

Tried to self install as per their paper guide. Could not quite get it done. Luckily they had a toll free number to call from India. I was very impressed that at 10 pm on a holiday, the call connected. And oh, the call went to a foreign country, not sure where. The accent was very un-Indian. Perhaps Philipines. Neat, I thought. For once, calls from India are being outsourced to another country!! Anyway, the person on the phone spent a good 15 min with me, guiding me on a step by step process, and got the router up and running.

I was happy.

About 5-6 days later, the router again gave issues. After trying hard myself, I called the toll free number again. The guy on the line tried his best, but could not sort the issue. He then put me across to their senior technician, who also tried hard. No go.

At this point, the senior technician, in what can only be termed as very western style, was able to authorize for me, a free replacement. He looked up and gave me detailed addresses, phone numbers and concerned persons’ names, at two independent locations in Mumbai, where I could go and get the router replaced. He even gave the call id reference number, his own name and suggested that this should be enough to get the replacement to happen.

Wow, I continued to be impressed. Even while I was continuing to be disappointed by what looked like a bad purchase! I was willing to assume that I had a bad piece, unfortunately, and this could happen as a bad coincidence. But that, since their service was so impressive, I might still be with the right brand and the right company.

Alas. This is where the international service ended and the India part kicked in. And trouble began.

Considering the conversation with the senior technician, I went ahead and sent the router with those details, to the service place. Which happened to be, by the way, an independent company, viz. Accel Frontline Ltd. I thought the call id and other details would be sufficient, as conveyed by the senior technician, and I was quite looking forward to an across-the-counter exchange.

Well, first of all, they asked for the purchase invoice. Which I had not sent. My bad.

As luck would have it, my invoice and credit card slip had got washed with the laundry. Did not remove it from trousers! But this part still worked out fine. I happened to visit Staples again, gave them the date and the reference (credit card, product name etc.) and they were able to pull out the invoice, and gave me a duplicate one. Service with a smile too. That I had gone on a weekday afternoon, when the store was pretty empty, might have been one of the reasons of the prompt service. That apart, the attitude was good.

So back to Accel. Sent the router and the invoice now. No across-the-counter replacement. They took the router, gave me an acknowledgement, some call id number of their own, and suggested to contact them after 7-8 days! Uh-oh.

Count to 10. Be patient. Hang on. I did. Decided to wait.

The service paper they made out and gave, had some impressive suggestions. That I could send the call id over SMS and get an automated updated status and everything. Wow. Service station automation. Cool.

7-8 days later, I first tried the phone only. They had a few numbers, including a cell number of one of their key persons. NONE of them responded! Tried the next day. SAME story. Could not connect on phone.

Then I remembered tha SMS option. Perhaps they don’t take calls to encourage everyone to use SMS. Did that. Waited for the response. Waited. Waited. None came.

Finally exasperated, and figuring that 9 days have gone by, and router should anyway be ready, I sent my person to go and fetch it.

Worst fears confirmed. It was not ready. Another 4-5 days was the time taken. Unfortunately my person did not connect me to them on phone, while he was there. I tried to call them to understand what the matter was. I could not connect to them on phone.

With no option, waited for another 4-5 days.

THEN, when my person called, lo and behold, the phone connected. And he was told that yes, it will take ANOTHER 4-5 days. But since now the phone connected, I decided to call them myself. The poor operator at the other end, did not have a clue why there is a delay. She promptly gave me the Mumbai head’s cell number. Which was “switched off”. So I called the babe again. So she cried, “we have not got the piece from head office, so how can we give you?”. I said that I need to speak to head office then. She promptly gave me the Chennai number of the concerned person at the head office. That was on Friday first half.

Over the day, I called this lady in Chennai 3-4 times, since she promised to help. Of couse, I had to use words like “consumer complaint” etc. but I am not sure if those were the catalysts, or whether it was always possible for them to do things, but needed someone calling in from Mumbai few times in a day, to make it happen.

Well, now I have been told that the replacement has been shipped to Mumbai office, and Monday might be my lucky day.

And then I have to hope that it was not a product problem, but just a piece problem, and the replacement works fine.

Oh, still a long way to go, before I reach true Wi-Fi happiness. Why did I not go for a Linksys only??

So the moot point here is, whether we are apathetic to service? We are too many. There will always be another sucker queieing up. So do we need to worry if this one’s disturbed. Is that the reason? Is it cultural – a ‘chalta hai’ high tolerance syndrome? The way Bhavin ultimately “settled” to accept a less than desired service level in Goa, do we all, just accept and resign ourselves? And continue to get shit??

I wonder about it. Even as I wait for my Wi-Fi to be restored at home..

Model — Theory — Metatheory (i.e. philosophy)

This is the model of theory presented in class.

Belkin is using a linguistics/computer science/information retrieval background as he develops his Anomalous States of Knowledge (ASK) model.

Question in class from Kate: how did Belkin’s model change IR (information retrieval)? Couldn’t be answered.

Comment about the cost of search in the early days of the Internet and then the Web. Interesting.

Berrypicking:

Murray says the reformulation of the query is the most important aspect of berrypicking.

The search itself is an integral part of the information searching process. Interesting, me extrapolating, to be implying that information can only exist in a query

———————

I’m sitting in class in LIS 510 and there have been some themes recurring in class lecture and discussion that I think I want to explore more. Much of the theory and research in IB I have real issues with, but I think there are some interesting areas of research in IB.

First, the field and its researchers are actively trying to have a “user-centered” approach and understand information behavior with an understanding that the subject doesn’t just encounter the “information system,” but that it is necessarily a component of the information system. This relates to my other studies in media. Think: “The medium is the message.”

Karen just made a comment, saying that “information must be presented at the right time for it to be internalized by a person.” My question then is: how is that information? Or more to the point, in this conception, information is an external, objective thing that must be given “at the right time.” I agree with this in a practical way, that is, I can see that it makes sense that people need to have information presented to them at a time when it can be meaningful to them. But this doesn’t obscure the fact that we are making some important presuppositions in this observation or belief that may not be and probably aren’t true. This is what is bothering me. All of this discussion of information and information behavior seems to have these presuppositions or “theories,” according to IB models of theory, that are just flat wrong. I can’t scratch this itch. I would love to be able to buy in, but I can’t. Enough metaphors.

To highlight a few areas in IB research that interest me:

1. Corporeal Information
2. Information as Place or Space

I think both of these avenues of research seem to implicitly accept the notion that the body is central to a theory of information and a theory of information behavior.

Wieder einmal 3 Stunden meines Tages für die Installation meines WLans unter Ubuntu 9.04 vergeudet, was tut man nicht alles für ein freies Betriebssystem.

Zuerst hatte ich auf einen Fehler beim Kernel getipp, aber das durchprobieren der letzten 3 Versionen brachte nicht wirklich ein brauchbares Ergebnis. Immerhin erkannte die Karte sofort alle Netzwerke in der Umgebung, auch mein Heimnetzwerk mit b&g&n Standard. Das einzige Problem war, dass er nach der Eingabe des PSK ewig herum funkte und am Ende wieder die Eingabe des Passworts verlangte.
Nach einigem Suchen fand ich dann auch die Lösung. Ubuntu mag es scheinbar nicht, wenn gleichzeitig WPA und WPA2 im Netzwerk unterstützt werden. Nachdem ich die Unterstützung für WPA ausgeschaltet hatte, funktionierte auch alles wunderbar.

Verwendete Hardware: Belkin n-Draft-Router und LogiLink WLan-n-PCI-Karte

Hier die entsprechenden Seiten im Ubuntuuser-Forum.

Kompatibilitätsmodus unter Windows 7 hat Nutzen

1. Ich habe die Lösung.
2. Mein Bruder hat mir das Programm “TeamViewer” vorgestellt und mir damit gut helfen können.

ad 1)
- Den passenden Treiber von der englischen Belkin Support Seite herunterladen. Dabei unbedingt auf die fünf verschiedenen Versionen achten. Die korrekte Version seines Adapters erfährt man über die FCC ID am Adapter.
- Die .exe-Datei mit Rechtsklick -> Eigenschaften bearbeiten.
- Häkchen beim Kompatibilitätsmodus setzen und Windows Vista Service Pack 2 auswählen und speichern.
- Neuer Rechtsklick und “Als Administrator ausführen” auswählen.

Voilà! Die Installation sollte nun problemlos laufen.

ad 2)
Der TeamViewer ist ein Remote-Desktop-Programm und gibt Vertrauten schnellen Zugriff auf den eigenen Desktop. Download. In Kombination mit Skype eine nützliche Support-Kombo.

Well apparently faulty manufacturing or quality control means that this could be a fire hazard.  Click here to find out how to return it.

The web 2.0 provides an excellent environment for companies to strengthen their brands. You can do it the Jedi way, or you can take a walk on the dark side. But, in keeping with the old Roman adagio: if you live by the sword, make sure you are prepared to die by the sword. The following are a couple of dirty social tricks I stumbled upon that backfired on their perpetrators.

I started a blog, which started the whole world crying. Cosmetics giant Vichy decided to create a blog based on the life experiences of Claire, a regular yet very pretty gal riding the cosmetics snake. This girl boasted somewhat artificial remarks about a particular Vichy product and was soon exposed as a corporate marketing maneuver. Vichy was immediately forced to make damage control and started using real bloggers’ opinions on product tryouts. They had a rough time though and until things straightened out, they were the laughing stock of the blogger community in France, which in case you don’t know, takes blogging pretty darn seriously.

Pimp my review. A mischievous employee of Belkin took it upon his own to start a campaign for promoting Belkin products. The industrious fellow paid 67 cents (USD that is) per positive review and / or recommendation written in Amazon Reviews for Belkin routers. A blogger discovered this and blew the lid off the whole thing. Allegedly Belkin was not aware of the ploy and made several apologies for the attitude of the employee.

The above are hardly isolated examples. I witnessed open video chat sessions with company executives getting massacred by former employees, viral campaigns that re-shaped product roadmaps (remember the Save Windows XP campaign?), Facebook causes bashing on products, etc.

These are all proof that trying to promote your brand via dirty methods can wind up in a terrible blunder, but more so when the medium is both your friend and your foe. Social channels are full duplex and feedback in social media is fast and when bad, merciless; a wrong move can trigger a negative image change reaction that can seriously injure brand and soul.

The rules of engagement in company-consumer relationships have changed dramatically. For the consumer, it’s a wonderful new era. There are a lot of fast reactions to social complaints: refunds, discounts, reparations, apologies, you name it. All sped up as the result of a blog post and the fear of the potential reputation damage they can produce. And I’m talking Amazon size companies here (The Kindle fiasco is still fresh in the collective mind).

For companies, it can also be a very powerful tool, dirty tricks aside. That is why we are now witnessing the re-shaping of marketing, recruiting and communication departments everywhere in order to adapt to the new media, and the arrival of boutique shops that devote themselves to 2.0 brand streaming. My good friends at El viaje de Odiseo are a living example of this.

In order to capitalize on the above it is crucial to be able to take in the criticism, separate the constructive part from the exacerbated berating and do something about it. To those with an open mind and enough humility, social networks, blogs and the like are tremendously powerful tools. To the stubborn and the excessively proud… better grab an umbrella because it’s going to rain blows.

It’s a brave new world out there.

Shuje

On my next post I will explain how becoming a member of a glam rock band stops your hair loss problems. In the meantime I’m open for feedback and receiving pictures of your lady friends. Send them to shuje@holoom.com

Upon attempting to mount an SMB share, I am getting error -43. The Share is my USB Memory Stick formatted as FAT16 by Mac OS plugged into my Belkin router.

The Console says

smb_maperror: Unmapped DOS error

I have tried editing editing smb.conf to miniauth=none but apparently that’s the wrong file. That’s the one for Mac OS SMB file sharing. I have turned off Security completely but it still wont mount.
Is there any chance the Belkin or OS X really would prefer FAT32 formatting?

FTP works fine however. It’s just a pain because the Finder’s FTP is read-only. Fetch is also having problems authenticating. I just made a new user on the SMB share on the Router’s setup page. Fetch is happy to connect and it shows me an empty directory- where exactly are we again? I thought I had shared the whole volume.
So I can’t seem up to upload onto it. TIme to call tech support perhaps?

Belkin announces its new Easy Transfer Cable for Windows 7, providing a fast and easy way to migrate files, music, photos, user accounts, and more from your PC running an older version of Windows to a new Windows 7 computer.

Designed specifically for the Windows Easy Transfer utility from Microsoft, the Easy Transfer Cable simplifies the transfer process with uninterrupted transfer and a post-migration report that provides comprehensive detail of what was transferred.

Features:

Migrates the following content easily and quickly, including:
- Music, photos, movies, documents, and other content
- User accounts
- Settings and customizations for Windows
- Files and folders
- Program settings and data files
- Email messages and contacts

- Quick setup in 3 easy steps: install software, connect the cable, and follow on-screen prompts

- Transfers your information much faster than burning CDs, setting up a network, or other means of copy data

- Sets up your new computer in minutes with your favorite settings from your existing computers and other devices

- Post-migration report provides comprehensive view of what was transferred, including lists of all programs and applications installed on old PC and links to download latest versions of programs

- Improved custom selection: user interface allows you to specify which items you want to transfer

- Officially designed for Microsoft Windows Easy Transfer utility

- Moves files between two PCs at speeds of up to 480Mbps. Estimate transfer of up to 7,500 songs per hour to your new computer.

- USB 2.0 Hi-Speed (480Mbps) and fully backward-compatible with USB 1.1 low-speed (12/1.5Mbps)

- Windows 7 32- and 64-bit certified

- 8-foot cable length