Salmon Bay Technology Demo

Over the years I have flashed hundreds of bios and firmware updates. I have never had a problem until a recent bios flash went south.  I have a Gateway T-1616 laptop and I was going to install Windows 7 on it so I could start playing with the new Windows.  Well I thought this would be a good time to reflash my bios to the latest version.  I downloaded the latest version from Gateway's website and ran the update.  I then rebooted the laptop and nothing; the only thing from the laptop was some activity from the DVD-ROM.  The screen was blank and nothing happened.  Well this is a first; I had never had a flash go bad.

Well after two days of scouring the Internet for info on recovering after a bad flash I learned that most modern bios's have a recover mode .  In this mode the computer boots up with the ability to reload the bios from a floppy or USB drive and reload the damaged bios.  In this mode there is no screen output and the bios either does this automatically if it detects the right files or you need a key combination to initiate the recovery mode.

I was unable to initiate the recover mode of my laptop, and Gateway support was no help.  If you are out of warranty they send you to their paid support.  Rather then spend the money on the paid support or to have someone solder on a new bios chip for my motherboard.  I will just buy a new motherboard for the laptop since I can change that out my self, saving the labor charges.

I want to begin this blog by saying I am not a wordsmith of any sort. I m a computer geek . So bare with me as I explain to you my preferred selections of open source solutions.

What software should you use that will save you money? For every major tool out there, there is a comparable open source solution. Unfortunately for the day to day average user Microsoft has the easiest operating system out there. The most interesting windows alternative I have seen is way to alpha for day to day use but is promising ReactOS.

For most productivity software there is some really great options for you.  We will begin  with Microsoft Office; a great product but pricey.  For this I see two really great tools. First is OpenOffice.     It is pretty much a drop in replacement for MS Office. It may not have all the bells and whistles but for 99% of users out there its worth the free price. Secondly I advice my clients to use Google Apps. This is a great tool, its 100% online and if used with Google Apps for you Domain it s a great money saver with centralized storage on Google s servers. 

Email is a big issue. For a long time I have used and loved Exchange/Outlook. It s the best email solution out there from both a user and an administrative perspective.  But it s expensive. Since I found Google Apps for my Domain I have advised all my clients who want to provide email for 50 people or less to use it.  You get GMail for your own domain with Google Apps for 50 users for free!  When I moved myself away from Exchange I wanted a few things.  My phone to sync email, contacts and calendar and even though its running windows mobile it works with Google!  Again Google Apps for your Domain does not have all the bells and whistles that Exchange has but I found I could not justify the expense of upgrading my Exchange server when I could move to Google for FREE. 

As I work on web design I don t want to pay for Photoshop so instead I use GIMP. GIMP is an open source image editing software that works similarly to Photoshop. I am not a Photoshop power user so I have not found anything that GIMP does not do.

Zip files are the standard for compressing data and everyone seems to use WinZip. Why pay for WinZip when you can get 7Zip for free? 7Zip works pretty much the same as WinZip. There s no need to pay for a tool when I can get a comparable version for free that has more supported formats. 

There are a tremendous amount of options for media playing software. I have seen and used so many tools out there and as far as I m concerned there is only one you need. VLC has been the most reliable, easiest and best performing software to use for all my media play back. And it s free!

Do you use accounting software? Well I have not used it much but the one I have toyed with a little is GnuCash.  If you don t want to buy quicken or peach tree this might be a good option for you. 

Well this is my list of money saving software options for people. If you have any that you recommend please feel free to share with me.

I personally use AVG Free on my personal computers, its free for non-business computers and it has worked great for me over the years.  Generally when I setup a computer for someone (or fix it) I will uninstall other name brand anti virus and install AVG Free.  The question that I get asked is what about the other features that products like Norton and Symantec come with like Firewalls and Anti-Spy ware.  Well Windows XP and above comes with a firewall and most people who have a router connected to their broadband Internet connection have a firewall. So your average user has two firewalls - a hardware firewall and the software firewall running on the local computer.  I find with my hardware firewall that Windows built-in firewall has been enough for me and most users I have supported.

I recently read this article from PC World and while AVG was third on the list I’m not changing what I use or recommend.  The number one anti-virus has daily popup ads and the number two anti-virus has a poor interface.

The only real exception that I would mention is if you connected your laptop up to a lot of different wireless networks.  You just don’t know what’s out there on the network your attaching to and that’s when your software firewall is your only line of defense.

As for most virus and security problems that I have witnessed, the best way to have avoided some of them is to not use Internet Explorer to surf the web. It’s the number one browser and so that’s where the most virus/hackers are going to focus their efforts.  I recommend using Opera or Firefox for Internet browsing. The other source of problem is your Windows has not been updated with the latest patches.  Turning on “Automatic Updates” is easy and will keep your computer more secure.

In conclusion, to really increase the security of your computer make sure at least Windows built-in firewall is active.  Install a free anti-virus like AVG Free and don’t surf the Internet with Internet Explorer and Turn Automatic Updates on.  The simplest way to check the status of your computers anti-virus, Firewall and Automatic Update is the Security Center in the Control Panel (Start->Control Panel->Security Center).

Welcome to the Salmon Bay Technology Blog.  I will be writing about Computers, the Internet, Web developing and Technology. My first topic will be Free Anti-Virus and what products I use and recommend.  So check back soon for my first full blog post.

If you have any questions for me just use the contact page to send me an email and I will gladly get back to you.  If your question would make a good blog post I will write it up.