Tim Russert

This guy was simply the best in his field and will be missed! Meet the Press was my favorite show on television and it was all because of Tim Russert. Gone too soon!

PGP 9.8 Sucks

I hate to say it, but it's true. I've been a loyal and avid user of PGP for over 15 years now. I started with command line PGP and moved to all of their Windows and Mac versions of the years. I was using PGP 8.0.2 for a long time and then finally decided to upgrade to 9.5. I'm very disappointed.

I don't know who's doing the programming over there at PGP these days but I'm sorry to say the latest version is terrible. I've had nothing but problems from the beginning. I've installed it on an XP computer and a MacBook Pro and both versions are lame. It's not the encryption that's lame, but the interface. The new PGP Desktop interface is just too confusing.

Since installing 9.8 I keep getting lockups and errors. I create a PGP Disk and then it can't be mounted. Or it's mounted but I can't see it. On the Mac version I go to try to do a whole disk encryption and it can't see any of my drives so I can't encrypt them.

In the new Desktop interface all the commands are so NOT logical. For some commands the only option is to right click to get a menu and then go through a sub-menu. It used to be so easy to double click a pgp file and then enter my passphrase. Not anymore. Now if I double click on an existing encrypted file the PGP Desktop opens up into PGPZip mode. It seems that any file with a .pgp extension is now treated as a PGPZip file instead of just an encrypted file. This adds another couple of steps to the process of unencrypting files. How LAME! And, it makes the whole process slower. It takes too long to open PGP Desktop even though it's residing in memory.

The messaging program is so confusing. It says to let disable SSL in Outlook and PGP handle my SSL connections to the server, but it never tells me if it's successful in getting an SSL connection. The documentation says PGP will "try" to upgrade all of my pop and smtp connections to SSL but how do I know if it's actually doing this? If I set the SSL myself, then I know it's working.

I've been a big fan of this software in the past but as the title of this post reflects, I think it sucks. It seems as though they've tried to dummy it down but in doing so, they've made things more complicated. Most of the people who are using encryption want to do it in the least amount of steps possible.

One thing PGP still does well is encrypt messages on the fly to people who happen to have PGP keys.

If you're looking for a no nonsense encryption package for file encryption, Google TrueCrypt. Awesome program!

Xobni for Outlook

I usually hate adding plugins to Outlook. I've tried a few that claim to organize my email for me but I'm so organized already that I rarely have to search for things. I usually know where they are. I read about Xobni (Inbox backwards) and thought I'd give it a try. After watching the demo video I installed it and have been playing for it for awhile. It's very nice.

Yes, it does slow down Outlook just a tad, but it does a really nice job of searching and giving you all kinds of information regarding your email. If you are using IMAP with a large account the indexing time will take quite awhile. If you have POP mail, give this thing a try.

Xobni

Mac Hard Drives Are Terrible

My Mac Powerbook drive crashed recently. I quickly found out what a hassle it is when you rely only on Mac. First of all, it was a major pain to open up the laptop to replace the drive. I've opened a lot of laptops in my time and this was one of the most difficult to work with.

Then, the tech guy at the Apple store admitted to me that the MacBook Pro and Powerbook line of laptops just get too hot, and hard drives fail. Last week one of my IT friends calls me to say that he had 2 Mac hard drive failures that week.

I don't know about you but I've rarely had a drive in a non-Mac computer fail on me. In fact, I don't know that I've ever had a hard drive crash. I have 7 computers in my home and have had a multitude of different brands over the years. Could it just be a coincidence with me? Perhaps, but I don't think so.

Spitzer takes a dive

This has got to be one of the most bone-headed moves I've ever heard of. How could this guy think he could get away with this. If one of those girls had gotten into any trouble they could easily have blackmailed him. Stupid.

Republicans are crazy to put up McCain

It's looking more and more like Republicans will choose John McCain to be the Republican nominee for President. The choice of McCain is driving true conservatives crazy. I like John McCain. I think he's straight forward and admirable but the simple fact is, he's too old.

Didn't we learn our lesson when we put Bob Dole up against Bill Clinton? Mr. Clinton was the lowest rated President in history one year before his re-election. It was a lock to get a Republican in the White House but instead of putting someone up that could compete with Clinton, we put up Bob Dole. He was simply too old.

The Presidency shouldn't be about who is next in line. If the Republicans put up John McCain against a youthful Barack Obama, they'll be toast. I like John McCain and if he were younger I'd give it to him just because he sat in a Vietnamese prison for 5 years. But now, even that is not enough for me to overlook his age. Yes, at 72 he is still strong enough to do the job. What about at 76?

The Economy Is Fine

I just read a really good article about the US economy. The media says we're in for a rough ride and a bear market. That's seriously doubtful. The so called credit crisis is not a crisis at all. Check out the Wall Street Journals article "The Economy is Fine (Reall). It's a good read.

News Busters

I just came across this site NewsBusters.org. It's an interesting site for those who want to track down bias in the media. It's true that there has been liberal bias in the media for decades, but with the arrival of FoxNews the bias now goes both ways. Can anyone really be totally impartial? Probably not.

Newsbusters.org

Palm Centro Battery Issues

I picked up a Palm Centro a couple months ago and it's a pretty nice unit. I've been struggling with the battery though because it seems to only last a few hours even if I'm not using it at all. Turns out, there's an issue with Sprint's email application. I uninstalled the application so we'll see how it goes from here.

Source

Amazon Kindle - Not for me

Amazon is selling a product called the Kindle. The idea is that you carry one device and read all your books on it. You download books to the Kindle and read them on one device. It supposedly has a sharp display but somehow I don't think I'll ever prefer reading on electronic devices to paper. Call me old fashioned but...I just don't see it for me.

I'll pass on the iPhone - for now

So I picked up an iPhone and used it for a couple days. I must say it's a huge step in the right direction for mobile computing, but I returned it. I just did not like the lack of external buttons. The soft keyboard just didn't cut it for me. Here's my list of pros and cons.

Pros

Looks cool.

Very slim.

Intuitive.

Google Maps application rocks.

Safari is great.

iPod rocks (but hangs sometimes).

Good voice quality and noise canceling.

Cons

No search in contacts (except through maps application).

No Glogal search.

No contact pictures in email, sms, or favorites dialing.

No quick dial feature allowing you to hold down a number (1 thru 9) to dial.

Soft keyboard is very hard to get used to.

No supported unlocking.

No sync with Outlook 2000.

No swappable battery.

No 3G or high speed Internet.

Easy to mis-hit keys on soft keyboard.

Hangs and not easy to reset.

Yahoo Mail is Fantastic!

The new Yahoo Mail is finally out of beta and it is fantastic. There have been so many speed improvements that it is finally a useable email client. I still use Outlook because I can't always rely on an Internet connection, but the new Yahoo Mail is a nice secondary email client. If you haven't taken it for a test drive, check it out!