MadMania

Back in the old Mac OS 9 days, when an application wanted to get your attention, it would just sit quietly and blink without interrupting what you are doing (like Windows did).

However, ever since Apple shipped Mac OS X ten years ago, this has not been the case. Now when an application wants to get your attention, it, like Windows, just pops a window up in front of whatever you are doing (they call this ‘stealing focus.’) Unlike Windows, this behavior cannot be turned off (in Windows XP you can use a free Microsoft tool called TweakUI).

While I was searching messageboards for a possible solution/hack to fix this issue I came across this entry by a similarly frustrated user:

“YES AAAAAAAAAH THIS IS A REAL AGRESSION TO THE NERVES ! ! !”

Working in I.T., I hear a lot of figurative terms for USB flash memory drives: thumb drive, jump drive, zip drive*, flash stick, and memory stick**.

My favorite term that I have heard, though, is ‘nerd stick.’ As I have mentioned before, my favorite nerd stick is the Victorinox USB Swiss Army Knife.

Both asterisked terms are erroneous:
* A Zip drive is a completely different (and antiquated) type of storage media manufactured by Iomega.
** A Memory Stick is Sony’s proprietary portable flash memory storage device.

Here’s a tip: if you ever have to set up a login for webex.com, you had better be prepared to receive a lot of junk email from them. Jerks.

A lot of you out there ask me for computer advice. I don’t mind; I like feeling important, and giving advice helps me do that (so does making my own blog).

Probably the question I get the most often is, “What kind of computer should I get?”

My answer is, always, “You should get an Apple Macintosh.”

The usual reply is, “But I don’t want to spend that much money.”

Then I say, “Then by a Lenovo.” It’s a cruel second answer, I know, as Lenovos cost about the same as Macs. But the truth is, when it comes to hardware, if I wasn’t an Apple guy I would be a Lenovo guy (it’s not a perfect analogy: I buy Apple hardware because it comes with the Mac OS).

But sometimes it’s not a question of money; sometimes people tell me this:

“I’d like to encourage viruses and spyware to run rampant on my computer while simultaneously preventing my most important programs from installing and / or running.”

Of course I point out that they could simply run an unpatched version of Windows and use Internet Explorer to visit sites that offer free hacked software.

“Isn’t there some other way?” they ask me.

Yes, yes there is. You could install Sophos Antivirus. Sophos is just such a program. While there is legitimate debate over whether it is pronounced SAW-fos or SO-fos, there is no debate that Sophos Antivirus will prevent you from installing, say, Hewlett Packard Web JetAdmin software. If you are wondering what nefarious deeds HP WJA is used for, it is used for remotely managing large numbers of HP printers. Wicked!

However, I don’t mean to insinuate that Sophos can only prevent you from managing your printers remotely. It can also prevent you from installing remote computer management software.

Right now you are probably thinking, ‘I would still like to install and run viruses, though.”

Not to worry; Sophos won’teven keep itself from being infected by viruses, let alone keep your PC from running them. Don’t believe me? Have a gander at this:

Last weekend I fixed my Xbox 360 and a pair of HP LaserJet P4015s; interestingly enough, they had a similar problem.

The Xbox wouldn’t eject the optical drive. I thought the whole drive had failed, and disassembled the Xbox. However, the drive would eject fine once the case was off. I did some more research online, and found a YouTube tutorial that showed how to remove the little rubber band / drive belt that runs the eject function from the front of the drive, wash it, and replace it. Worked perfect.

The LaserJet P4015s were jamming as they were feeding labels from tray three through tray 2. The fix was to remove tray 2, and clean the rollers in the top of tray 3 with adhesive remover.

At any rate, both problems were caused by rubber components being covered in some sort of residue that was preventing proper movement.