I return from my blogging hiatus to announce the public launch of Stack Overflow, a programming Q & A site designed by Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood. It’s a wonderful idea implemented well, and I am excited to see how it evolves as time goes on.
(Please, please God, let it replace all those experts-exchange links in Google…)
That Logitech Revolution mouse I said I liked a couple months ago?
I take it all back. The problems started up again not long after that, and I ended up switching to the Razer Deathadder, an absurdly comfortable gaming mouse, and I’m having absolutely zero regrets on the matter. It’s the best mouse I’ve ever used, and I can’t recommend it strongly enough.
Yesterday: I use Yahoo Music as an example of a poor, platform-limited based distribution system?
Today: Yahoo Music is dead, and they are sending their customers to Rhapsody. Which works fine on Linux, by the way.
So on Saturday I contracted my first virus in 4+ years of Windows computing. I obviously wasn’t careful enough and have no one to blame for myself. That said, these things have gotten REALLY annoying to remove.
The main infection was a Vundo Trojan – not particularly dangerous, just extremely annoying. Dialog boxes and pop-up windows everywhere. My first step was to pull up the Task Manager and do a quick scan of running processes. Any I didn’t immediately recognize, I Googled – most were new programs running because of my little Logitech/Bluetooth adventure from a couple days ago – but one I got zero results for: C:\Windows\System32\nyyyutbm.exe. Looks like a typical spyware file name, but since I hadn’t gotten anything, I figured I’d do a full sweep.
Now since system files can’t be removed in a normal instance of Windows, first I had to boot into safe mode in Windows, and cruise over to TrendMicro’s HouseCall. Running that determined I had Vundo and removed part of the infection, along with some other miscellaneous stuff. I followed that up by a full system scan with AdAware and Spybot, and returned to a Windows desktop free of nasties. Still not sure why Google came up with no results – maybe I just got lucky enough to find a new mutation of the bug.
Anyway, that got me thinking about the fact that I was still using Windows for most things when I told myself I wouldn’t after my last installation of Ubuntu Linux. So I switched over and started playing around with it. I’d left it because of some little bugs that I didn’t feel like messing with at the time, but I was a little bit more determined now. First thing to solve was my issue with Ventrilo in Linux. It’s buggy at best, but I found a suggestion to manually replace Wine’s sound card driver with a version used in Windows, msgsm32.acm. This fixed everything. Three cheers for community support.
Next up was making it look the way I wanted it to. I enabled the Compiz and Beryl effects (now run jointly under the name Compiz Fusion) and downloaded ccsm, the effects configuration tool. After that I installed Emerald, a themes manager for CF, and downloaded the WhiteMod theme. It was still missing something, though. After some Googling, I came across AWN and it’s sexy twin, AWN-Curves. This walkthrough, again from the Ubuntu community, got me up and running with that. So I ended up with really a very nice-looking desktop that ran WoW and Ventrilo, and gives me all the wonderful functionality and power of Linux in a too-sexy-for-my-shirt package:
Not too shabby. Hopefully I last this time!
I’m a bit of a gadget hound. I like to try out new things as long as I can justify them somehow in day to day life and use, even if it includes trying out the Best Monitors Under ($150). I also shop a lot at Woot. This means I often find good deals on things like mice, headphones, keyboards, and other such computer accessories. Which I buy, on occasion.
A few months back I purchased the Logitech MX-5000 wireless laser desk set from Woot. I liked a lot of things about it, but the keyboard didn’t sit my hands right, and just “felt wierd.” On top of that, it had issues with Linux compatibility, and since I dual-boot Ubuntu, that was a big problem. So, I tried just the mouse for a bit, but the Bluetooth reception was spotty at best, and I went back to my old Microsoft Wireless Desk Set For Less, which despite its low cost has been extremely durable. I just have always wanted a nicer mouse, and the gaming keyboard features of the MX-5000 prompted me to buy it.
Anyway, that was a bust. Then not long ago, they had the Logitech MX Revolution mouse for sale, which I have heard people I trust swear by. The price was reasonable, so I bought that. I used it for a while but then it, too, had the same Bluetooth reception issues. I switched back to the Microsoft mouse but missed the ergonomic feel of the Revolution, as well as the extra buttons (handy for gaming, web surfing, and coding too!), and decided to figure out what was wrong with it in order to fix it.
Let me start by saying that Bluetooth is a horrible, evil technology. Its existence is proof of the existence Satan, much as the existence of Claim Jumper is proof of the existence of a kind and loving God. I did not want to work with it. For one, it operates on the same 2.4GHz band as, well, everything else that anyone has ever made to be wireless. This makes interference a real pain. Also, it has really screwed up functionality in Windows – more on that later. Third, it’s much more finicky than most wireless setups – note that my Microsoft keyboard and mouse were also wireless, and never had a problem at all.
I set out to eliminate as much possible interference as possible. Living in an apartment complex means I will have it no matter what, but I can reduce it at the very least. First I disabled the wireless broadcast on my router from firmware. Next, I made sure that the mouse was only a few feet from the computer – this required me to move the computer from where it currently was. Last, I took care to move the power strip as far out of the way of the wireless as I could. I plugged everything back in, and while it said I was getting good reception, the mouse was “sticky” and unresponsive.
So I looked at the software. I uninstalled all Logitech and Microsoft wireless software and drivers and then made a fresh install of the latest version of SetPoint from Logitech’s web site. No improvement. This is where Google came to my aid. I discovered that the Microsoft implementation of Bluetooth pretty much sucks on a level roughly on par with Lawrence Tynes’ performance on Sunday, so my best bet was going to be finding a new Bluetooth manager. Logitech seemed the easy and obvious solution, so off I went. After installation, reboot, and configuration – the mouse works great. (Knock on wood.) So, while Logitech’s keyboard still sucks, their Revolution mouse is currently emanating awesome from my desk, and I’m back to being happy with my setup.
That is, until I start looking at widescreen monitors. Sigh…