While updating a machine from Acrobat Reader 7.0 to 7.0.5 I encountered a another annoyance I have with the program.
There is no reason an application should require a system reboot for a software update.
Update 2005-11-04
So a friend who programs under Windows on occasion pointed out that the
recommended way for programs to handle replacing in use files under
Windows is set it up to be done at next reboot. So there is apparently a
reason for an application to require a reboot to install. I point out
however that it would have been preferred to inform the user what programs
are currently using inuse files and asking the user to close them so the
install can continue without a reboot. I note that plugins for web
browsers do this. Updates for CorelDraw work this way.
So I change my objection only slightly: There are few reasons an
application should require a system reboot to perform a software update.
If it needs to update in use files, it should make every effort to do so
without requiring a reboot.
I really dislike wall warts.
Primarily because they take up so much space near plugs. But also
because; they seem prone to fail more frequently than integrated power
supplies (although this is likely because most wall warts are cheap linear
ones), are hot (also likely because of cheap build quality), waste a good
deal of electricity (once again the fault of cheap warts usually), and
easily come unconnected from the device they are powering when wires are
accidentally (or intentionally) jiggled.
Under my desk at home I have 9 wall warts (Palm, camera,
usb hub, battery charger, external hard drive, cordless
phone, dsl router/modem, and two ethernet switches), connected to a
single 7 outlet power strip via Power
Strip Liberators. Even with my nearly obsessive need to tie up excess wire, it is a mess.
At work I deal with a handful of wall warts at my desk for things like
my USB hub and ethernet switch. But it is not these that caused my
displeasure to bubble forth out of my brain. My complaint is about things
marketed toward businesses and things designed to be mounted in racks Even more specifically,
my complaint is about a
Belkin OmniView 8 Port KVM I have.
Now it is my understanding (gleaned mostly from my electrical
engineering brother) that wall warts are used because; companies can use
off the shelf power supplies, the design of the device is easier as they
don't need to deal with interferance or heat from the power supply, and
they don't need to get their device certified by places like the Underwriters Laboratory since it is a low
voltage device.
Wall warts on my server shelves are a pain. UPS's are
not designed to accommodate them. They are more difficult to tie up
neatly (I purchase cables of the correct length so there is little to tie
up normally). And perhaps the biggest gripe, the damned barrel plug on
the KVM falls out at the slightest nudge (well, it did until I applied a
dab of hot glue to the top of it).
As I now look for environmental monitoring hardware I see wall warts
everywhere. Wall warts on $500 products simply do no make sense. So I
make a plea to all electronics makers; please eliminate wall warts
whenever possible. If not possible at least use high quality inline
warts. While I go out of my way to purchase products without warts for
work, I will file a complaint with any product maker that uses them when
the size of the device could accommodate an internal power supply.
So along with 40 laptops we use as a mobile instructional lab, we got
four external battery chargers for the batteries used in those laptops.
I have been using one of them for a few months now. This morning I
dropped four batteries into it. Coming back a few hours later
expecting the green lights to be blinking (meaning the batteries
were charged), I was surprised to see three of the four lights red.
Now I had understood that that indicated the batteries were bad in some
way but didn't quite know what it actually meant.
A little bit of trial and error found that any batteries put into those
slots were now deemed bad even if they had previously charged fine.
At this point I go to the Dell website looking for the manual for the
charger. Searching for battery charger didn't come up with much. Finding
a part number (0F0075), a service tag, and an express service code, I go
back to the support site and try to look up the device by those.
Support.dell.com tells me that the Express Service code and the service
tag are not valid. A general search of the site brings up a page with an
interesting tidbit.
Q: Does Dell sell external battery chargers?
A: Dell does not currently offer external battery chargers.
from Dell
Notebook Battery Center FAQ
Wow, this must be a pretty serious hallucination I am having.
Searching the internet brings up nothing but replacement batteries. So I
call up Dell.
A brief tangent on phone mazes: I have dealt with two phone mazes
today, one at American Airlines and the
other at Dell. Both systems allowed
(and basically required) voice response to the automated questions. The
one at Dell could barely handle exact responses as requested. The one at
American Airlines on the otherhand could handle all sorts of extraneous
noise and responses. For example it could figure out that "yep", "yes",
and "correct" were the same thing. The one at Dell could only handle a
nice short enunciated "yes".
While upgrading their software, Dell
should invest in a decent audio to hold music adapter. The hold music was
pleasant generic light classicalesque, but it faded in and out and was
usually crackly. It would also be good if they normalized the volume of
the music to the lady that continualy informs me that "All of our
representatives are assisting other callers. Please remain on the line and
a representative will be with you as quickly as possible." was a similar
volume to the music.
After asking and confirming my express service code, the phone maze
directs me to Dell Plasma TV support. I quickly get bounced to another
phone queue followed by another, and another. Before I actually speak
with someone that can help, I have spent over 2 hours on the phone and
have spoken with at least 4 people.
During this enjoyable time on hold (cordless phones with speaker phones
are required for dealing with tech support) I discovered another
interesting issue with the battery charger; apparently it needs to be
powercycled. After it was unplugged for a minute all of the charging
slots once again seemed to work and all of the batteries were once again
deemed good
Sure enough, once I finally did get ahold of the manual(pdf),
the troubleshooting section on page 12 suggests powercycling as a solution
to the red light indicators.
In a world where a new virus/worm can sweep around the world in under
48 hours, prompt virus definition updates are a requirement. For some
inexplicable reason however, there is no built in way for a Symantec
Corporate Edition 9 server to download updates daily.
Symantec Corporate Edition has server side bits that allow a company to
manage the client anti-virus software. You can setup
scheduled scans, configure how on access scanning works, push out new
virus definitions, and configure pretty much anything you would want to
configure on a client machine all from one place.
One would think that the server side programs would have the ability to
schedule checking for new virus definitions from Symantec. You can easily
do this. Well, you can if you want updates weekly. Weekly isn't
acceptable in this day and age of sweeping virus outbreaks. Thoughtfully,
Symantec has a solution, the
XDBdown.cmd script downloads Intelligent Updates (which are updated
daily). Ignoring the fact that this script uses some batch file voodoo
that could be used to scare first year computer science students; why is
this needed? Why isn't this included in the basic functions of the server
side software?
I have been told version 10 allows the admin to choose any definition
download schedule they wish. I have also been told not to rush to install
it as the upgrade process is not quiet painless. When there is a major virus outbreak in the
wild, I can run LiveUpdate manually and it will grab new definitions more
often then weekly.
can manually run LiveUpdate whenever I wish
and it will grab a daily update. For something as simple and repetitive
as this it should be automated. Until this upgrade happens, I shall have
to survive with a script scheduled by Scheduled Tasks on my server.
