It took 24 Customer Service people at Earthlink in a 31/2 hour marathon period to answer the question of whether Earthlink could supply our new ADSL account with a static IP address for a commercial site that had shifted from SDSL to ADSL for the additional speed once the phone company had the capability.
We had talked with Earthlink and been informed that we could replace our old SDSL (12 kb/sec) line with a ADSL line that was 25 times faster than the old snail-pace 2X-modem data funnel we had. The phone company had moved a terminal server closer to the Company such that the Company was no longer at 17,500 feet from the Central Office Point but were now only 13,000 feet and thus met the 15,000 upper limits to receive ADSL.
Once we had the ADSL, we asked for the accompanying static IP address that was attached to our old SDSL service. So I started in at 10 a.m. and called for support from EarthLink's Technical Services.
The first few bounced me around, stating that they had no knowledge, and then, in order, the following persons answered the phone: 7 Mike ; 8 Shirley; 9 Deets; 10 Ross; 11 Ted; 12 Jessica; 13 Noel; 14 Chin; (connection lost). 15 Shawn; 16 Keith; 17 Dennis; 18 Edmond; 19 Christen; 20 Jeff; 21 Stephany; 22 Tom; 23 Steve; and, finally(!), 24 Bryan. "Only Covad has static IP"; "AT&T have none to give to Earthlink", "Some other Earthlink customer needs to give up their static IP address in order to transfer it to the static IP address of the client".
Not only was supporting me expensive in personnel time on the part of Earthlink, the favorite trick was to transfer my call to ANYWHERE to get rid of it, and that is why I wound up talking to accounting and sales.
Eventually, when I was savvy enough, I requested to be transferred to a second-tier that could help me, the Earthlink system failed. It was set up that when transferred correctly and the line was not picked up, the call was defaulted back to the lower level for random pickup.
So there I was, trying to get to the second-tier and I was being dropped back (when the phone was not answered in a reasonable time) to the lower level to yet another first-tier person that needed the whole story again to get back to the proper second tier.
If it weren't so critical to establish conclusively that Earthlink could not support our needs in order to avoid a breach of contract perception, I would not have persevered.
Once it was concluded that Earthlink could not fulfill its commitment to successfully move our account from SDSL to ADSL, it was time to go to another supplier that could.
This brought out that my allegiance to Earthlink has to be at an end. I have recommended Earthlink to lots of persons who needed some insight about what ISP to join.
What came out of the investigation is that Earthlink is getting out of the large company business support and is now concentrating on individual accounts. Witness the fact that Earthlink will not support a commercial interface with payments being made over the Internet.
In addition, there is the absence of native English-speaking personnel, which makes the process just that much more difficult.
A note to all: SPAUG will ALWAYS send out a paper copy of its newsletter; organizations that don't do so are often gone within 18 months.
What we are going to try to evaluate is your response to our sending out the electronic copy of the newsletter as soon as it's available, so you can send it along to prospective SPAUG members, read it yourself, and look forward to receiving the printed version soon. [N.B.— the Newsletter is also available online at the SPAUG website - click the Newsletter - In Progress link for the current month, or the Current link for last month's, or Archive to get any available issue.]
N.B.—Gene Barlow will be the General Meeting Presenter for 8 November 2006; this will be his topic.
The next few months promise to be an exciting time for PC users as Microsoft rolls out their new Windows Vista operating system. While some business systems may be released late this year, most of the action will take place shortly after the beginning of the new year. Now is the time to start planning how you are going to take advantage of this new technology.
This is the first new version of Windows in over five years and is a major change in how PC user will interact with their computers. Lots of new function has been added to Vista to make it the most exciting new Windows since Windows 95 was first introduced. You will want to be a part of this major step forward in technology.
Some of the new features added to Windows Vista include:
These are just a few of the hundreds of new features you will find in Vista. To read about more of them download the Windows Vista Product Guide found on the Microsoft's web site at www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/preview/.
Interested and excited about Windows Vista? You should be. This is a very important change in how we use our computers. So, what do you need to do to get your computer ready for Windows Vista?
Microsoft suggests two ways to move to Windows Vista. They are as follows:
So, how can you get to Windows Vista and still have the protection of your working WinXP system while you are getting use to Windows Vista? The secret is that you setup your computer's hard drive to run multiple operating systems. That will give you the ability to run both your current WinXP operating system and the new Windows Vista operating system on the same computer. This is easy to do with the right software tools.
First, you need to set up a logical Data partition on your main hard drive to hold all of the data files. Then you can access those data files from either of the two operating systems you are using. To do this, you need a partitioning utility like Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0. More about this excellent utility later.
Once you have moved all of your data files from your WinXP partition to this new Data partition you will be ready to install Vista . You can do this in the following ways:
By using multiple operating systems on your computer to run both WinXP and Windows Vista, you do not risk having to burn your WinXP bridges before you are comfortable with Windows Vista. This gives you the time to test out your application programs and get everything working on your new Windows Vista system before you commit to using it exclusively. Once you are satisfied that Windows Vista works perfectly for you, then you can discard the old WinXP system and only use Windows Vista. It may be several months before you finally get rid of WinXP. You do not need to get rid of it the day you first install Windows Vista like the two Microsoft options suggest.
To help you move to Window Vista, we are putting several things in place. First, you will need a copy of the excellent partitioning utility, Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0. This product normally sells for $50, but we offer it to user group members and their friends for a discounted price of $29 in our Fall Special bundle. You will also get a copy of our tutorial, Getting Ready for Windows Vista in the Fall Special bundle. Both of these for only $29 is an outstanding bargain and one that you won't want to miss. Order yours today from our web site at www.usergroupstore.com. Look for the Fall Special and use the order code of UGFAL06 to complete your order.
To help you understand and use Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 to get ready for Windows Vista, we have just completed a new tutorial titled, Getting Ready for Windows Vista. You can view it on our web site at www.ugr.com/tutorials.html. This will help you to better understand the steps needed to set up multiple operating systems on your computer. Those ordering our Fall Special on a CD will receive the tutorial CD with their order. Finally, we are working on a detailed step-by-step technical paper titled, Using Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 to Install Windows Vista. This paper should be available around the end of October on our web site. We want your move to Windows Vista to be successful, so we are offering you all of these tutorials and papers to help you get there as planned.
Be one of the first to use the exciting new Windows Vista operating system on your computer and share this information with your friends. We will help you get to that point safely and easily with our excellent products, tutorials, and prices. If you have any questions about this article or Acronis True Image 10.0 Home, please send them to gene@ugr.com. I look forward to helping you if I can.
Gene Barlow, User Group Relations
PO Box 911600
St George, UT 84791-1600
This is one of a series of monthly technical articles that I distribute to those that have subscribed to this newsletter. You can subscribe at www.ugr.com/newsletters.html. Watch for them and learn more about your computer and its hard drive. User group newsletter editors may print this article in their monthly newsletter as long as the article is printed in its entirety and not cut or edited. Please send me a copy of the newsletter containing the article so that I can see what groups are running the articles.
Anyway, I read [Jim Dinkey's] Op-Ed in [October 2006] PrintScreen and have a few corrections for you.
Vista is a complete rewrite of the Operating System Code. In Microsloth's infinite wisdom, they decided to try to use C Sharp (Microsoft's answer to Java code) to base this new OS on. It was horribly slow and incredibly buggy so they scraped the code and the top architects and started over. That's the major reason Vista is running about a year or two behind schedule.
This version, again using C++, is a complete rewrite of a complete rewrite. It has some very different internals than XP. For example, the video code has been pulled out of the core kernel code. The reason is that buggy video controller code could and has crashed WinNT4.0, Win2K, WinXP systems. The only reason Microsoft originally put the video controller code into the kernel was for speed. That is no longer necessary. Video systems are now fast enough and they don't need to compromise the kernel core any longer.
Also, because the video code is so different in Vista, most people will have to upgrade their video controller cards to use this new operating system. There is a program from Microsoft which will test your system to verify if it is "Vista Ready" or not. Most systems will not be ready because of the Video thing.
Additionally, there is currently a huge fight between Microsoft, Symantec, and McAfee over access to the Vista kernel code for virus software. Microsoft will not allow them access to that critical core anymore! Which makes both vendors' products useless for Vista. Microsoft wants to cut them out. Discounting the megalomania of Microsoft, protecting the core kernel code is a pretty good idea to protect the system from viruses. In short, the system will be more armored and resistant to viruses by design. This is a good thing.
The bad thing about Vista is that it is brand spanking new code. Version 1.0 of anything will have issues, as we all know. So, waiting for SP1, SP2...SPX will be the order of the day.
Anyway, that's the big news on Vista in a nutshell. I've been following the development over the past few years.
There it is.
Acronis just announced the latest release of their award winning backup utility, Acronis True Image 10.0 Home product. This is a significant new version of this best of breed backup utility. The many new features of this release make it the most powerful and complete backup utility on the market. This is just the product you need to be using to protect your important computer information from hard drive crashes and the damage that viruses and faulty software can cause. Copies of this new release can be ordered from our web site at www.usergroupstore.com for just $29. That includes a training CD that will show you the Perfect Backup Approach you should be using with this exciting product. Order your copy today and be ready when problems occur.
Acronis True Image became famous for its ability to create an image of your entire hard drive to let you backup your operating system, application programs, and data files. This new release continues to do this full drive backup to perfection. This is the basis of any good backup system and is used extensively in the Perfect Backup Approach.
New File Backup Enhancements: A year ago, Acronis included in True Image the ability to also backup individual files and folders, as long as you could identify them. With version 10, you can tell True Image what types of files you wish to backup and it will find them on your hard drive and back them up for you. Using this advance function, you can find and backup your Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets, Quicken files, music files, video files, digital photo images, and other categories of files without knowing where they are located on your hard drive. You can also now backup your Outlook files including your email folders, contacts, appointments, to-do lists, and other parts of the Outlook files. True Image 10 also helps you to backup dozens of application program settings, so that if you need to reinstall an application, you do not need to adjust all of the settings and options associated with that application. The ability to backup individual files has become a powerful addition to Acronis True Image 10.0 Home.
New Backup Scheduling Enhancements: Another important new feature in Acronis True Image is the ability to completely automate your backups so that you do not have to think about them. Three new functions have been added to True Image 10 to accomplish this. First, you can now define backup policies that let you specify exactly what you want to do. For example, you could specify that you want to make a full backup image at the beginning of each month and then incremental backup images each week till the next full backup is scheduled and True Image will implement your policy. Also, you can manage your backup locations with rules so that you do not have to worry about the naming of your backup files or how many backup images you will keep before older backups are automatically erased to make room for new backup images. When you reach a certain number of full or incremental backups, new backups will automatically erase older images for you. You can also specify the amount of space on the drive that you want to use or the age of the backup before it will be erased. Finally, you can request that an email message be sent to you when a backup is completed. Now with Acronis True Image 10.0 Home edition, you can setup your backups for automatic running and forget about them. It couldn't be easier.
Other New Enhancements: There are several other important new features that have been added to True Image 10. You can now backup to an FTP site on the Internet with True Image 10. You can do a quick backup of specific files without having to open True Image to start the backup. The end-user interface has been cleaned up to make the product easier to use. You can now explorer your backup image files directly without having to mount an image on Windows and then use Windows Explorer to look inside these image files. You can consolidate several backup images to save room on your backup hard drive. The Acronis Secure Zone can now be password protected to prevent others from accessing your important backups. This new release now supports Windows Vista operating system and no longer supports Windows 98 or Windows Me operating systems. These and many other changes make this the best release of Acronis True Image ever. It was a clear winner before this release. It is unquestionably the top backup utility available today with these new features.
Acronis True Image 10.0 Home edition is available from us for only $29 at our user group discount price. This is slightly less than the upgrade price through Acronis and you get a full new license of the product and not an upgrade license. This price also includes a copy of our backup training tutorial titled the Perfect Backup Approach, a $10 value. In addition, I try to help my customers when they have questions about True Image, in addition to the normal technical support through Acronis. You can order your copy of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home from us at www.usergroupstore.com. Make sure you use the order code of UGTIH10 when placing your order.
If you are a current user of Acronis True Image, then you will want to get this new release and put all of the new features to work for you. If you have not started a backup plan for your computer, then this is the best product to accomplish this important task for you. In either case, place your order today so that you can enjoy this new product soon. If you have any questions about this article or Acronis True Image 10.0 Home, please send them to me. I look forward to helping you if I can.
If you have any questions about Acronis True Image 10.0, please send them to me. I look forward to helping you if I can.
Gene Barlow, User Group Relations
PO Box 911600
St George, UT 84791-1600
This is one of a series of monthly technical articles that I distribute to those that have subscribed to this newsletter. You can subscribe at www.ugr.com/newsletters.html. Watch for them and learn more about your computer and its hard drive. User group newsletter editors may print this article in their monthly newsletter as long as the article is printed in its entirety and not cut or edited. Please send me a copy of the newsletter containing the article so that I can see what groups are running the articles.