I have moved...

Well not me per say, but this blog. I have consolidated all my blogs into one.

http://blog.jonesonthenet.com

Thank you!

Archos 5 Internet Tablet

I recently purchased the 32GB Archos 5 Internet Tablet. I upgraded from the 16GB Microsoft Zune HD.

Here are the specs:

Display - 800x480 4.8" TFT LCD

CPU - Main 800Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 32bit

Additional 32bit DSP @ 430Mhz

RAM - 256MB SDRAM

Storage - 32GB Flash + Expandable MicroSD Slot

OS - Android 1.6 Donut

Built-in GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0

To be perfectly honest I was a little dissapointed with the Archos 5 right out of the box. It is sluggish and the touch screen is not as responsive as my HTC Evo. The Android OS installed is a dumbed-down Archos version that doesn't have access to the Android Market by default (there is a hack that allows you to install it however). The built-in GPS isn't the best either, I am not able to get a satellite signal on the Archos while indoors.

After using the Archos for a week and getting it all setup just how I wanted it however I have to say now I really enjoy it. A firmware upgrade took care of the performance issues I was seeing right out of the box and having the Android Market installed opened up a whole world of apps that I didn't have access to before. I installed CoPilot GPS software and using it with the WiFi adapter disabled seems to improve GPS signal.

The audio and video quality are outstanding and I honestly have to say if you are looking for an all in one unit (GPS, MP3, Video) the Archos is a great option. I use it in my truck with a $15 window mount I found on eBay, and it is a very useful tool paired with the WiFi tether from my HTC Evo.

Sprint HTC Evo 4G .. A Review

So.. it's no secret that I am not a fan of Apple or any of it's products. What I tell people when they ask me how I can not like such a "cool" or "innovative" product is this.. I don't like them on principal, I don't agree with the way they do business therefore I am not going to support them by owning their product. That being said I do beleive that Apple's iPhone is an industry leader that has set the bar for other cell phone companies to strive to achieve. I have not seen any of them come close.. until now.

I was given the Sprint HTC Evo 4G by my wife as an early fathers day present. The Evo 4G released June 4th 2010.
First impression : "Look at the size of this screen!!" Followed by "The touch response is amazing!"

After I charged the Evo I spent the next 10 hours browsing the web, installing apps, watching videos, taking pictures, taking videos, syncing various applications etc.. and after that 10 hours was up I had gone through most of the battery, though it wasn't low enough to alert me so I am not completely sure how much more time it would have lasted. I was a little disappointed that I had to stick it on the charger, so when I did I started looking up other peoples reviews of the Evo. Most people had the same problem I did.. battery life! In comparison though, my old HTC Touch Pro would have never lasted 10 hours through the barrage of things I was doing on my Evo so I was not completely dissatisifed. Then I found it!! 4G!! It is not available in my part of town (at least not for another couple of weeks) and the 4G is enabled out of the box on the Evo.. so it had been burning battery looking for that 4G signal.. I switched this off when I removed the phone from the charger after it had charged. I also shut off WiFi and the Automatic Sync of Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter. My 2nd day of use of the Evo found 18 hours of solid use and I had just under a half a battery left! Success!!

HTC Evo 4G Specs:

• 4.3" 800x480 capacitive TFT Touchscreen with multi-touch capability.
• Android 2.1 OS with HTC Sense UI
• 8-Megapixel Camera with LED Flash and 720p HD Video Recording
• 1.3-Megapixel front-facing camera for video conferencing
• 1GB of flash memory
• 512MB RAM
• 1Ghz Snapdragon processor
• 802.11 b/g WiFi
• GPS with free turn by turn navigation
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 4G WiMax
• FM Radio
• HDMI Out port
• 3.5mm headset jack
• microUSB port
• 8GB MicroSD card out of the box (expandable to 32GB)
• Digital compass, G-Sensor, Proximity Sensor, and a Light Sensor
• 1500mAh battery
• Kickstand on its back!

After using the phone for 4 days now I really have zero complaints. I love everything about this phone and I really beleive it is the first phone that compares to (and in some cases exceeds) the iPhone. Please check back soon as I will be posting some pictures taken with the awesome 8mp camera and I hope to do a video side by side comparison with an iPhone that I will be posting as well.

iPad??? Really??

It's no secret to those that know me that I am not a fan of Apple, but Apples latest release has some devout Apple lovers cringing! The iPad (insert witty comment about feminine hygiene product here) has to be the most over priced worthless piece of technology I have ever seen. It has one thing in common with all other Apple products, it's flashy to look at. Let's take a look at the tech specs first:

Size and weight

Height:

9.56 inches (242.8 mm)

Width:

7.47 inches (189.7 mm)

Depth:

0.5 inch (13.4 mm)

Weight:

1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) Wi-Fi model;

1.6 pounds (0.73 kg) Wi-Fi + 3G model

Display

9.7-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology

1024-by-768-pixel resolution at 132 pixels per inch (ppi)

Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating

Support for display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously

Processor

1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip

Available in 16, 32, and 64GB models

Battery Life

Up to 10 hours of surfing the web on Wi-Fi, watching video, or listening to music

(I pulled the above information directly from Apples website, so I find it interesting that they listed basically EVERYTHING that the iPad is capable of doing right in the battery life specs)

Yes folks, you can expect to pay a base price of $499 for a 16GB up to $699 for the 64GB version, unless you want the ability to throw a SIM card into it and (no you can't make phone calls, just connect to a 3G network) that will add $130 to the cost. All for a device that does LESS than the iPhone. There is no multi-tasking with the iPad (one thing running at a time, no multiple windows / programs at the same time)

Now I'm sure someone will Jailbreak the iPad just like they have done for the iPhone which will add functionality that Apple should have done in the first place, but keep in mind if you do you void your warranty!

It is this bloggers opinion that if you are thinking about getting an iPad because its flashy and the screen is pretty, just get an iPhone! If you want a highly portable device that will allow you to connect to the internet, read an e-book, instant message friends, send e-mails, save yourself 200 bucks and get a NetBook! At least then you will be able to do all these things at the same time!

April Fools Worm.... ugg...

Who here remembers when the worlds computer systems were going to shut down on Jan 1 2000? Raise your hand... OK good. Now I am not going to say that the Conficker Worm is not real, but I am going to say that there is a whole lot of undo panic being raised for a Worm said to be first released in 2008 and set to deploy itself April 1st 2009. Microsoft released security patches months ago in expectation of this and anti-virus companies have already released tools to clean your system of any dormant Conficker strains.

The Conficker worm will embed itself deep and is difficult to track and if not removed it will recieve silent updates on how to mutate and evolve to get around patches and anti-virus programs. One thing it for sure will do is disable Windows Automatic Updates and remove Restore Points saved by Windows. It is also what experts are calling a "new age" threat where as viruses and worms of old used to destroy data and/or render a PC useless, the Confickers purpose is believed to install programs on your PC that will SPAM out to everyone in your contacts, it may also steal your identity.

You should only be worried about the Conficker if you have not recieved any Windows Updates in more than 1 month. If you believe you have been infected you can download a removal tool from Symantec here.

So let us sit back and hope for a day when they catch these basement dwelling bottom feeders who have nothing better to do than concoct these nuisances and stone them in the streets!

Creative ZEN X-Fi Wireless MP3 Player

I recently purchased the Creative Zen X-Fi MP3 player because my Creative Zen Vision W was just too bulky to use as a go anywhere player.

The X-Fi is very sleek at 3.3" wide and 2.2" tall with a thickness of .5". I purchased the 32GB model with built in Wi-Fi capability. I have been very pleased with the X-Fi's sound quality it is unsurpassed by any other player I have listened to. The Creative software that comes with the X-Fi is very easy to use with drag and drop similar to iTunes. I did have problems trying to use Windows Media Player 11 to sync with the X-Fi, if I tried to remove too many files from the player through Media Player it would freeze up the player. This problem was not present when I would use either the Creative software or just browsing the device in windows explorer. The player has a built in FM Tuner and the ability to record FM Radio. It also plays MPG, WMV, and DiVX formatted video files, the software comes with a video converter that will convert any video to be compatible with your player.

I was able to attach to my home wireless network in seconds with the device and it does a search for Creative compatible Media Servers, and it just so happens that my Iomega StorageNAS where I store all my music is compatible and was recognized as a device I could browse and add music to the X-Fi from. You can also install Creatives Media Server software on any PC you want the X-Fi to recognize.

The only con that I can see with the device is that all the buttons do not light up so you have to be able to feel your way around the buttons in a low-light situation.

The X-Fi comes in 3 storage capacities; 8GB,16GB, and 32GB. The 16GB and 32GB are the only ones that the Wi-Fi is available on.

Digeste.dll is not a valid windows image

The inital complaint was that this message popped up when the machine booted into Windows XP, and once they clicked OK on the box the desktop was blank and they could only push the power button to shut off the computer.

When I fired up the PC I booted directly into Safe-Mode first and noticed that explorer.exe kept crashing and restarting, so I knew I was dealing with a virus. I booted to the desktop and saw the message about digeste.dll was actually in a window titled "dwwin.exe Bad Image". Explorer still kept crashing and eventually didn't restart itself. I could manually start it by opening task manger and starting it in a new task. But it would just start the crasing and restarting all over again. I opened a command prompt and did a regsvr32 /u digeste.dll in c:\windows\system32 - I then deleted digeste.dll. Upon reboot I was able to use Webroots SpySweeper that was already installed on the system to run a full system scan and remove all other infections. I then installed AVG anti-virus as the system did not have any anti-virus software installed. A scan of the registry and HiJack came back clean. Problem solved.

Antivirus 2009 and other malware!

I began working on a computer where the owner was complaining of "pop-ups" and not being able to browse the web.

The computer is a Gateway running Windows Vista. I logged in to the Administrator account and got to the desktop, before I could do anything else about 9 "Windows Security" pop-ups came up telling me to download various removal tools. Most of them were recommending I download Antivirus 2009. Then I noticed the owner must have already taken the advice because Antivirus 2009 was running in the background asking to run a complete scan.

Antivirus 2009 is Malware, or software designed to infiltrate and damage a computer. One of the best removal tools for Antivirus 2009 is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware software. Upon searching for this software from the computers web browser I discovered another problem. The go.yahoo.com / go.google.com virus. This virus prevents you from actually going to any website by redirecting you to an unlimited amount of search websites. I downloaded Malwarebytes on my laptop and transferred it to my flash drive and then installed my flash drive in the computer. When I tried to run the mbam-setup.exe file it wouldn't run, which is another symptom of Antivirus 2009, it blocks the installation of things that can kill it. A simple work around for this was to rename the .exe file and then it allowed the install to happen. After installing I rebooted into safe mode (this is accomplished by hitting F5 or F8 during the boot process before the Vista splash screen comes up) I then ran a Quick Scan which completely cleaned the Antivirus 2009 off the system, but upon reboot into normal mode I discovered that the go.google.com virus was still present, so I disconnected the ethernet connection and rebooted into safe mode again and ran a Complete Scan with Malwarebytes, this found 8 more infections in which it cleaned, and upon reboot I ran another Complete Scan in normal mode and it found 5 more infections which required a reboot to clean. When it came back up everything seemed to be working great.

I always run HiJackThis on all systems I am working on just to make sure that no malicious Browser Helper Objects (BHO) are left behind that will continue to allow malware / spyware to be installed. The HiJackThis log looked pretty clean, but I removed a few toolbars and search assistants that only slow the functionality of Internet Explorer down. After a final reboot the system was running smoothly with no further infections showing up in either Malwarebytes or Windows Defender. They were using an expired version of McAfee so I uninstalled this and installed AVG Free Anti-Virus and updated it. A complete scan from it reported no infections / problems. All in all it took around 4 hours to remove all infections, but most of that was time spent performing the scans which doesn't require direct intervention so I was able to do other things while they ran.

There are also manual removal methods for the Antivirus 2009 software which involves booting into safemode and killing certain processes (av2009.exe, etc.) and then deleting registry keys and deleting all files related to Antivirus 2009, but I find using software not only does the trick but also removes items you may not know was infecting the system.

First off let me say welcome to my new blog. I created this blog because I wanted a blog that I could use to discuss my interest in all things tech.
Now on with the show. I just built a new PC for The Pinnells, they had a Dell XPS 400 and the motherboard went south. We decided on a budget of around $700 just for the tower because they had everything else already.

I began shopping around and I chose to buy from www.zipzoomfly.com because I have had great success from their service department in the past and also they have lightning fast shipping for cheap. Tigerdirect.com has some good deals on bare bones systems, but I really like being able to choose all aspects of the build. With a budget of $700 I decided to not go to expensive on the case, but I didn't want anything to flimsy either, so I decided to see what Cooler Master had to offer. I decided to go with the Cooler Master Centurion 5 case which I found for $55.

I decided to go with a Intel processor on this build because quite frankly their Quad Core processor line really out does AMD by leaps and bounds. So I chose the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33Ghz processor for $195. With memory prices as cheap as they are now I decided to just max out the system (he wanted WinXP 32bit installed) and put 4GB in it. I found a killer deal on Corsair XMS2 4GB Kit for $55. They didn't really have alot of PCI cards in the old system that they ever used and didn't plan on expanding the system much anyways so I saved money by choosing a economical motherboard, the MSI G31M3L for $43 is a small board for the big Cooler Master case, but it will get the job done. They don't game much, but he does use AutoCAD, but on the $700 budget a Quatro or similar card is pretty much out of the question, but I figured a card with alot of memory on board should fit the bill just fine, so I chose a ASUS GeForce9400GT with 1GB DDR2 on board for $80. Hard drives have come down in price so much I decided to go with a 2 hard drive setup, one for the OS and applications and another for storage of music, videos, etc. I chose a Seagate 250GB SATA II 7200RPM drive for the OS and a Seagate 1TB SATA II 7200RPM 32MB Buffer for storage both drives came to $160. I figured a 500W power supply should power this rig fine, but had limited cashflow left so I wasn't able to go with a detachable cable power supply but I found a nice OCZ 500SXS power supply for $60.

I really liked the simplicity of the Cooler Master case and its tool-less design. The Intel processor runs lightning fast and overall the system is extremely quiet. I deliver the system tomorrow and hope The Pinnells will be happy with it.