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I’d never heard of deep-frying a turkey until about a week ago. Apparently it’s a big thing in some American States (southern ones, I’ll reckon).

It’s also dangerous as hell, in part because it’s difficult to estimate the amount of oil the bird is going to displace in the fryer. Check out this amusing website from the Underwriters Laboratories. The MPEG movie of the guys in bunker gear lowering the turkey into the fryer is almost as funny as watching the thing boil over and catch fire.

Happy American Thanksgiving!

I was thinking of writing a similar article but this guy has beaten me to it. The executive summary: by visiting a single website Edelman was able to get a machine infected with no less than 16 adware programs.

The hostile programs installed themselves on his computer by exploiting various security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, even though some of their masters claim they would never do such a thing.

Don’t think that you will be able to avoid such hostile websites. You will be tricked into visiting one. They will find your weakness, be it music, movies, smileys, kittens, wallpapers, screensavers, or Paris Hilton, and they will dupe you into going to their website. There, they will infect you.

This, I think, is a great reason to visit Windows Update right now, if you run that OS, and put in every Critical Update they offer. Hell, put in every damn update they offer. Don’t listen to that jive from your buddies on how Service Pack 2 will make your machine slower. Ask yourself: would you rather be slower, or hacked? After you reboot, go directly to Mozilla.org and download and install a copy of Firefox. Then, never use Internet Explorer again, unless you need to visit Windows Update, which requires it (interesting, that…). Get a copy of Ad-Aware. Run it weekly.

OK. Rant over.

Have you ever wished that you could play with your Commodore 64 again? It was my first computer, and I loved my Commodore in the same way that people love their first cars.

PC’s are more numerous, and more capable in every way to a C64, but there is something still appealing about that era. This was when computers were cool and new. When they did only the stuff they needed to do. When if they screwed up you could just shut them off and not have to worry about damaging your hard drive or whatever. There were no viruses or spyware (not for the C64, anyway). There was no Digital Rights Management (well, not much). You didn’t have to download patches for software you just bought.

Admittedly back then you would actually have time to make and eat a ham sandwich while you waited for stuff to load. And downloads from a BBS literally took hours. But nevertheless, it was a simpler, more relaxed time for computing. Not like the frenzied usage of today’s computers.

There was a lot of fun stuff on that computer. With only 16 colours and 64K, hackers still managed to produce some seriously fun games. Since there were no photo-realistic graphics or immersive 3D environments, you had to use your imagination when you played games. The game’s backstory wasn’t told in a opening movie, it was told in a book that came in the box.

PC’s have been powerful enough for some time now to entirely emulate the hardware of simpler machines like the C64. You can download near perfect, free emulators and best yet, you can now download just about every Commodore 64 title you can think of. They come in convenient files which can be stored by the thousands on the hard drive of your PC (in fact, an “obsolete” 540MB hard drive can store close to three thousand C64 disk images, lol!)

Great nostalgia, and still all kinds of fun. Let everyone else try to figure out how to get Half-Life 2 running. I’m going to hang out and play the Bard’s Tale.

I was hacking away on Saturday when I got a phone call from someone who was having problems making his laptop to work with a projector. Something about a wedding. I’m so glad I found somebody around today, I’m really stuck. I didn’t catch his name or recognize the voice so I figured it was a cold support call.

To some techs, these kind of calls can be a little trying. I get unpaid support requests all the time (daily, in fact) from people I don’t know and have never sold anything to. Even the simplest support call can easily take up to five minutes of my time. You could see it as selfish, I suppose, but time is money, and that is basically five bucks I could be earning for the company fixing a paying customer’s computer.

In my industry, the traditional way to avoid dealing with support has been to politely tell the customer to piss off. Of course we can help you sir. Can you tell me your service contract number? The more contemporary dodge these days is to have automatic voicemail, even if you are sitting beside the phone. It intimidates many unsolicited callers, and if the customer doesn’t leave his service tag, support contract, or telephone number you simply don’t call him back.

When I got into this business I promised myself that I wouldn’t do any of that. I would endeavour to answer every call and return every message, even ones I knew I couldn’t make any money on. Good customer service starts with thinking like that. I am in a service business after all. Within reason, the more services I provide, even free ones, the more billing I am likely to be able to generate, either now or in the future. It is also the nice thing to do. World needs more nice.

So I tried to help the guy through his projector problem, suggesting that he try using the blue Fn keys to activate the external screen output, or maybe even reboot to see if the video adapter figured out that there is a projector hooked up. He bid goodbye and hung up, presumably to test out my suggestions.

Sometime later he called back and left a message telling me that he got it to work and I had been really helpful, etc. . . Made me feel as if I had done the nice thing, it did. Worth more than every penny spent.

Throwing a network gaming party is becoming a popular sport these days. The LAN Party or LAN Bash, as it is called, is a way for some friends to relax, drink some booze, and play video games. Some of the biggest parties can have upwards of 4000 attendees. I’m thinking a bit smaller — maybe a dozen people.

Over the years I have noted some things which make a LAN Bash a success. Here are fifteen of the ones which come to mind.

1. Obviously some locations are better for gaming than others. A finished basement in a house is ideal – perhaps a one bedroom apartment is not. There needs to be enough room for everyone to set up their rigs, places for people to rest after they’ve all fragged out, and a fridge to keep your beer, pop and food cold, preferably in the same room. I have noted that a house with a bunch of little children running around, while cute, isn’t so ideal as they can get hurt in the clutter that ensues when a dozen computers are all packed into a room.

2. If you are able to throw a ‘bash on a couple of days notice, good for you, but as the years advance, you may find that more and more of your friends will have pesky things like jobs and significant others getting in the way of their gaming. Hence, you should set a date in stone a couple of months beforehand. This will give everyone enough time to make the necessary arrangements.

3. Confirm the guest list a couple of weeks before. This isn’t so much because of the people who can’t make it, but in case there are extra guests. There needs to be enough space and network connections for them.

4. A good LAN Bash can last for days. At the very least it should be a whole day event so it’s worth everybody’s time. It might be easy for you with your xPC and flat panel display, but some of your buddies have to move a hundred pounds of equipment. So try to convince the majority of the players to show up as early as possible to maximise gaming time.

5. Set up the location the day before, if possible. If someone other than you is supplying the network equipment get the stuff off him early. Get tables and chairs moved in place, and sort out any network cabling problems early in case you need to buy more patch cords. To protect cables on the floor throw mats over them – I’ve found it to be more effective than duct tape, although that works fairly well too. One of my friends, who throws legendary LAN Bashes, has his whole basement permanently wired with CAT5, network drops and a switching hub for ease of deployment. He also keeps bulk cable, RJ45 connectors, a crimping tool, and a cable tester on hand so custom length patches can be made. That’s a bit hard core – pre-made 25 foot patches are usually sufficient in most rooms with a centrally located hub.

6. Since most LAN Parties go well into the night it is not a bad idea to do takedown the next day after everyone has recovered.

7. While I always bring a freshly installed machine to a network party — I’m the exception to the rule — most will bring their cluttered up personal computer. Ideally everyone will have cleaned up their computers and configured them for network usage, but in reality, many gamers don’t know how. So it is helpful if at least one of your friends (or you!) is handy with small computer networks. Get him in there as early as possible to help everyone else configure their machines. Compensate him for his efforts with beer and food. It is also helpful if everyone is virus free.

8. It is a good thing if the gaming machines can access the Internet. In this way cracks and patches can be obtained. Also, players who have been kicked or defeated will have something to do while they wait for the next game session. High-speed Internet is the only way to go. Use a SOHO router to manage the connection and supply DHCP services to the computers. You can get these for around $70 or so.

9. All machines need to have TCP/IP installed, and this is generally not a problem if they are on the Internet already. Many older games will also work better with IPX/SPX. Some require it. Windows doesn’t install IPX/SPX by default, but it can be added to all versions of Windows in the Network Connections applet. If you plan to be trading files back and forth, you will also need to enable File Sharing. In Windows XP this can be something of a chore, and is probably worth a whole other article.

10. Firewalls can interfere with games, particularly older ones with poorly designed protocols. Unless you really know what you are doing, turn your firewalls off for the duration of the ‘bash. Even the oh-so-secure Windows one. If you have a decent router you should be secure enough.

11. Setting up wireless, while amusing, is mostly impractical. Most gamers have wired Ethernet cards in their machines. Wires either work or they don’t. With wireless you are never sure. Make sure that everyone has a working Ethernet card. I always bring spare ones just in case.

12. Figure out what games everyone will want to play beforehand and have discs ready. Not everyone will have the same skills or the same amount of computer power, so older, simpler games are often better. I have found that team-based are always more popular. Some good multi-player shooters I’ve played include: Serious Sam, Quake 3, Mechwarrior 3, Dungeon Siege, Battlefield 1942, Counterstrike, Unreal. I think Serious Sam is my favourite because it is silly, cooperative, and easy to play. Some good Real Time Strategy games: Total Annihilation, Starcraft, Age of Empires. Starcraft is always a favourite because it is easy to learn and will play on older machines. If you still play Turn Based Strategy, I’ve found it’s not a bad way to kill a morning while you wait for more people to show up. I discovered recently that old-school favourite Master of Orion 2 actually works under Windows XP, and can even be played cooperatively against the computer opponents.

13. If you happen to have a good imaging program like Alcohol 120%, image off all of the games you can and put them in a folder on your hard drive. This is most convenient and you can share that folder so others on the network can copy the images they need from you.

14. Don’t forget sustenance. Timbits are good, but meat is probably better. Good food and drink will make everyone happy, and may even stave off malnutrition in some of your friends. A happy gamer is a fed gamer.

15. Oh yeah… And have fun! I know some people who take LAN Bashes way too seriously, as if it were a sports competition (also something that many people take way too seriously). A LAN Party is not a serious thing, it is pure entertainment. Like most things, it’s really it’s all about the bonds you make with friends as you mercilessly gib them. Appreciate it for the diversion it is.

There are even online resources for hosting larger LAN Parties.

This is what an Palomino Athlon XP 2000+ looks like after it has seriously fried itself.

Mmmm. . . toasty CPU goodness. Don’t forget the heat paste!

I’m working away on a new system, an Athlon 64, and I hear this high-pitched whistling noise, almost like singing. The computer has been working hard for a while installing it’s OS, but the this new noise is not right, not the kind of noise you get normally.

I lean towards the computer to hear the noise better. The whistling sounds like a bad CDROM or maybe the hard drive or something. Not good.

The CDROM is working at full tilt right now, installing some utilities. It’s a tools disc we’ve burned for use in the shop. If the ROM is cracked or warped I should probably be aware of it so I can dispose of it and make a new one. A warped CDROM can expire in the worst way inside a 52 speed drive.

You know, now that I think about it, that noise sounds almost electrical….

BANG!!!

Bright flash. The power supply blows hard and showers burning circuit crap on my fingers. Luckily my head is at the top of the case near the CD drive. It’s more surprising than painful, but serious nevertheless. I instinctively yank the power cord from the back of the unit.

The shop fills with the stink of phenolic resin. The smell of electronics burning.

All of my fingers are still there. This is good. I was only really worried for a fraction of a second. Mostly I didn’t want to be the subject of the evening news. Man killed by exploding computer. People would surely laugh at such a thing. Damn computers. Always knew they were dangerous.

A new 480 Watt power supply unit. I’ve used this model a number of times before and I’m not entirely sure why this particular one decided to die so violently, but I’m going to assume that some substandard component in it overheated and expired.

Another exciting day of computer repair.

I know this old guy who is a kind and good and just man.

When World War Two was starting his government said that his people needed to rise up and fight against their enemies. They needed to win their freedom from the oppression of the Armistice leftover from the Great War. Furthermore, if they did nothing, Stalin, with all of his weapons and soldiers, would most certainly invade and enslave them. So when his Führer said that Germany needed some good men, he joined the army so he could fight for the freedom and safety of his people.

He wound up on the Russian front. He won’t give me any particular details about his time there, and I don’t blame him really. Somewhere along the way, I suspect he realized what a horrible mistake the whole affair was. Other Veterans have told me that experiencing the horrors of war can give you a perspective that no amount of propaganda can.

When the war was over, the old guy was apparently disgusted enough with his homeland to leave and come to Canada to live in peace. Perhaps he was ashamed, but I don’t think he should be, if that’s the case, because fighting for something you believe in is important. One really can’t fault a young man for standing up and doing what he’s told is the right thing. Millions of other Germans were fooled into the same thinking by Hitler.

Some 60 million people died because of that son-of-a-bitch and the other Axis leaders. But I don’t blame his soldiers. I blame him.

On the news this morning there is a story of an young American, a kid really, who answered his government’s call to rise up and fight the evil of terrorism. They needed to strike out decisively against terror, and if they did nothing, the evil governments would most certainly use their stockpiles of chemical and nuclear weapons against them. So when his President asked, he joined the army to fight for freedom and the security of his people.

He wound up in Iraq fighting to take down Saddam Hussein and his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. But as before, experiencing war first hand can give you a perspective that no amount of propaganda can.

There weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. And the young man figured it out. So when his unit rotated back to the States he went AWOL and fled to Canada. He now refuses to leave because he faces two-to-five in a military slam for his convictions. One really can’t fault a young man for standing up and doing what he thinks is the right thing. But millions of other Americans continue to be fooled by President Bush.

Tens of thousands have died in Iraq so far because of his senseless war there. But I don’t blame the soldiers for doing their jobs. I blame him.

I wasn’t alive when any of the big wars were fought, but I know what the costs were. In the past century as many as one hundred million people have been killed and countless more scared because of our wars. The reason we observe the tradition of Remembrance Day, or Armistice Day, ANZAC Day, Volkstrauertag, or Memorial Day so that we will not forget the horrors behind us. Otherwise we are doomed to face those same horrors again.

I have found a new truism in computer technical services called Vossen’s Law (not to be confused with the more famous Gossen’s Law).

The likelihood of a repair or modification working is directly dependent on whether you’ve reassembled everything without testing it first and inversely proportional to the difficulty of disassembling everything in the first place.

Corollary #1: If it is REALLY difficult to remove and replace, you will break something else just as you get it back together after fixing the first thing.

*sigh*. It is so very, very true when applied to computers and electronics.