Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
I was reading an article entitled, “Mac fanboys should get a life and some Windows 7 common sense” today and came across a line that piqued my interest. The line was this: “Vista was a Windows failure.”
When I read that line, I stopped cold for a second or two. I started thinking and asking myself silly questions, like, “Gee, I’m working on Vista right now. What’s wrong with it?” and “Why is it that when ever I read something about Windows Vista, it’s negative?” and “Why do I feel like every computer I go near that has Vista installed on it is going to blow up like a giant stink bomb?” Seriously, I am typing on a machine running Windows Vista right this very moment and the world is okay.
I am not simply sticking up for Microsoft, although I was just saying a few days ago that it wouldn’t really matter what position someone takes, I am bound to take the opposite one. I am a debater by nature and right now Vista is the underdog. So there you are.
I will tell you this, I absolutely hate Internet Explorer. It doesn’t matter what version comes out, it pains me to open the program. Maybe it’s because it is excruciatingly slow. It’s not only slow to browse web pages, it’s also slow to just open and run. I read a comparison between the latest versions of IE, Firefox and Chrome the other day. They said that speed was generally the same among all three applications. My eyes nearly fell out of my head. I was like, “What planet are you from?” I only use IE for one thing now and I don’t look forward to it.
I also hate ActiveSync. I used to use it to sync my Treo with Outlook. It was such a waste of time. How many times can a person sever and restore the relationship between the phone and the computer? My fingers used to hurt from crossing them so much.
This brings me to the last thing (I think) I don’t like from Microsoft…and that is Windows Mobile. When I was using Windows Mobile on that Treo, I must have given that phone a hard reboot hundreds of times. It pushed me into the arms of Blackberry, where I have been warmly embraced ever since. I have had my Blackberry for about two years now. Do you know how many times I had to reboot the phone? Once. That’s right. I had to reboot the phone once since I got it and that was just last week and the problem wasn’t even with the phone. It had to do with a Google app that had a bug. Now that’s good.
So, back to my original question. What in the world is wrong with Vista? It is just that there were some compatibility issues when it first came out? Does it have to do with usability issues? Do people dislike the little box that pops up when they have to install or uninstall software?
Since I really don’t know the answer and really have only had a few problems with Vista, I decided to do a little Google search. Here are some sites that offered me some answers:
- The top five reasons why Windows Vista failed
- Microsoft admits Vista failure
- Why Vista failed – suicide by not fearing Linux enough
I guess there are some legitimate reasons why people are a little ticked off. Especially when the company that made the software admits it didn’t work out. I seem to think they are just pumping up Windows 7 though. You know, if you say your previous product (which is naturally dying off soon anyway) was so bad, it makes people want your new product that much more. “Gee, this new Windows 7 must be really GREAT!!!” Honestly, if you want to beat up on a version of Windows, you should have beat up on Windows 98. I am still having shivers from that one. Want to talk about blue screen?
I gotta tell you something. Maybe a lot of the people who are complaining about Vista are open source users. Over the last year, I have actually transitioned myself to use more open source programs than traditional ones. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. I use a few though. I really like what I use. Most of them are smooth, lightweight, fast and have frequent updates. I can’t wait for the day that I have the guts to actually switch to an open source operating system. That probably won’t happen for some time because I am not one to sit and struggle with configurations or trying to see what works with what. I am impatient. If it doesn’t work quickly, it gets uninstalled.
Here’s a question – What has Vista done to you? I would like to hear from real people with real problems. I’m sick of the biased bloggers out there who now have a venue to talk smack. I don’t believe any of them. The problem is, many people do. So, let’s have it.
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Sunday, October 12th, 2008
This is a follow up post to my previous posts about my friend’s Google ranking drop. As you may remember, his Google ranking was restored a few weeks after he blocked the proxy website from copying his entire website and submitted a Google reinclusion request. As you may have guessed, he was quite thrilled to see his SERP ranking shoot up again.
Well, as luck would have it, I received a phone call last night from my friend telling me that his website was bombing again. I Googled his favorite keywords and they seemed to rank fine over at my end, but he explained that he traffic stats from Google was flat. They nosedived a day or two ago. I chalked up the results I was getting to Google adjusting the results.
This new twist got me thinking. What in the world could be making this website’s ranking bounce around like this? Looking back, the proxy website may not have been 100% at fault. There has to be something else.
I began doing a little research and learned about few things about duplicate content. The reason I looked at that particular area is because there is absolutely nothing else I can find wrong with this website. Duplicate content seems to be a rather popular culprit.
I came across a pretty well laid out website called “Google Rankings Diagnostics” that describes a whole heck of a lot of issues you might be having with your website. This website validated what I pretty much already knew…that if you have multiple URLs (on a domain) with the same exact content, Google has trouble figuring out which page is the original and may throw all of them out.
I took a very close look at my friend’s website. Again, I took a unique line of text from his homepage and searched for it in Google (inside quotes). A funny thing happened. I saw the homepage result, but there were a few extra results as well, all on his domain. There were about 5 extra pages in total.
Now, some of these extra results have been there for years, so I don’t attribute the issue to those pages being duplicate content. What struck me was one of the extra pages.
A few months ago, my friend moved one of his pages. He put a 301 redirect in his .htaccess file, which was the correct thing to do. So now, the old directory where the page was held forwarded to a new page. It looked something like this:
Redirect 301 /olddirectory/ http://www.hiswebsite.com/newpage.php
The redirect worked fine, but here is what that extra page in the search results looked like:
http://www.hiswebsite.com/newpage.phpoldpage.php
Guess what page was showing at that URL…yup, the homepage. The dynamic nature of his website sends unknown page results like this to the homepage. This was a fluke. My friend forgot that there were pages inside the old directory he redirected to the new page. Every old page in that old directory was tacked on to the new page, like you see above. To make matters worse, there were a bunch of links from other websites pointing to the old pages in the old directory.
I am not sure if this would cause the ranking drops that he is experiencing, but the timing certainly lines up with when the issue began. It is also certainly considered duplicate content.
So, here is what I did to deal with the issue this time. I deleted the redirects in the .htaccess file and blocked the URLs of all those extra results in the robots.txt file. Hopefully, this will tell Google to not spider or index those pages and it will also tell Google that those links into the site are dead.
Now, we have to wait. I am not going to submit another reinclusion request to Google because I want to see if the ranking returns naturally. If it does, this was the problem for sure.
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Thursday, September 25th, 2008
This is a follow up post to my “Sudden Drop In Google Ranking post.
This morning, I checked the ranking of the website in question. To my surprise, the site had again ranked number 4 in the Google Search Engine Results. This was most definitely good news. In fact, all key phrases now ranked on page one of the Google SERPs.
I can only hope this persists. So, what did we do? Here is a short list:
- Noticed the website had dropped in Google ranking.
- Took a unique phrase from the website homepage and searched Google using quotes, “like this.”
- Found a direct copy of the website and discovered it had been “Proxy Hijacked.”
- Found IP address of website that Proxy Hijacked our website and blocked it using the .htaccess file.
- Submitted a “Reconsideration Request” to Google.
After about a week and a half, our website had regained its ranking in Google.
I read a long article about Proxy Hijacking and it mentioned that Google had fixed the problem. If this was the case with my friend’s website, this certainly isn’t true. While I can not be totally sure Proxy Hijacking caused this case of Google ranking loss, the facts seem to lead down this path.
What is my advice to you? Check either Google or Copyscape once a month to see if someone has taken text or Proxy Hijacked your website.
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Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
My brother has gotten to the point of rebuilding the engine of his 1970 Ford Mustang Mach 1. The engine is a 1970 351 Cleveland that was built on Aug 10, 1969. That’s a pretty long time ago.
I gave Jeff a call yesterday and he told me about what he was doing. I got excited, because it reminded me of the days when I was cool…rebuilding engines of my own. I am partial to Chevy small blocks, but I guess Fords are ok too. I remember every detail of rebuilding all my engines. It is quite interesting, because you get to see how everything works and how different parts have different effects on performance.
So, here is what he told me. He pulled the engine a while back. He recently took the heads off to measure the bore of the cylinders. This is important because if the bore of the cylinders is too large, that means the cylinders are worn and they need to be bored out. You hear this kind of talk a lot among 16 year olds that ride 2-stroke dirt bikes. They are always talking about “boring out” their engines. I know this, because I was one of them (16 year old, that is). Remember, if measuring the diameter of the cylinders, make sure you take the measurement more than a half-inch down, inside the cylinders. The top half-inch of the cylinder doesn’t get touched by the piston rings…the part that wears the cylinder.
Anyway, there is another important measurement that Jeff needed to take, and that was the diameter of the bottom of the cylinder compared to the top of the same cylinder. This is a measurement to see if the cylinders are “tapered,” meaning, one part of the cylinder is worn more than the other. Since this is kind of a tough measurement to take, Jeff brought the engine down to his local machine shop. He is getting a bunch of work done to the engine down there. Here is a list of what they are going to do:
- Measure the cylinder diameters (like I described above)
- If ok, (which they are…it was already done) hone the cylinders the proper way for the type of rings that will be installed
- Clean the outside of the engine block and heads
- Flush the inside of the engine block and install new freeze out plugs
- Install new camshaft bearings
- Give the cylinder heads a valve job
- Install hardened valve seats to allow for unleaded gasoline
I am probably missing something. I forget a lot in these later years of life. In any event, this is all the stuff that requires professional attention. Jeff can take care of the other stuff, like installing the camshaft, the timing set, etc… All that takes in a steady hand and a torque wrench. I am sure the engine will come out very nicely. Jeff is currently looking for genuine Ford colored engine paint, to get the color just right. This is important with an engine like this because it is going to be restored to original specs. With a “matching numbers” car like this, you can’t make mistakes like painting the engine the wrong color.
Here are some “before” photos of the engine:
Jeff is also sending the carburetor out to Pony Carburetors for a total rebuild. Apparently, their rebuild techniques take a lot of natural issues out of the carburetor. I am sure there will be a post dedicated to that alone.
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Thursday, December 13th, 2007
I run Windows Vista. I have a C: drive that can hold 290GB. I also have a D: drive that can hold 7.68GB. This D: drive is also known as the “Recovery” drive. Windows Vista has a fancy feature where you can set up a backup schedule to back up all your files and stuff from the C: drive to the D: drive. I think this is really nice.
There is only one problem. After I set up the backup schedule with all the recommended settings, I ran the backup. About half way through, I received a message informing my that the D: drive was full. Hmmm…that’s really interesting. Am I doing something wrong?
The reason this puzzles me is that this computer is only a few months old. Why in the world would Circuit City sell a computer with a large hard drive and a tiny backup drive? At this very moment, I remain puzzled. There has got to be something I am missing.
Oh well. I went on CircuitCity.com today and browsed through the external hard drives. I came across the “Seagate 250GB FreeAgent Desktop Drive” and thought it was a great deal. I could plug this external drive into my computer and have it run as the backup drive, once a week or so. I can even put it on the scheduler. That’s pretty cool. With the 250GB capacity, things should be good.
Here are my concerns…I am still wondering if I was doing something wrong with the current backup drive. Also, I am hoping I don’t run into any snags with this new drive, such as, “Oh, this drive won’t hold those types of files” or something like that. The drive is only $79 and change, so it’s worth the gamble, I guess. I plan on using the external drive for a full system backup and restore (if need be).
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