Well, sort of. In the 1980′s the Commodore 64 was the most popular home computer. Commodore sold millions of them, and many of their users became programmers or other technology workers.

While Apple got most of the glory, the Commodore 64 was of the “blue collar” computer.

I wasn’t aware of this, but a company recenly bought the rights to the Commodore name and put up a new web site, http://commodoreusa.net just last month.

The new Commodore 64 is actually a stand-alone computer that looks like the old Commodore 64 on the outside, but inside is a computer from today. It comes with a mini-ITX motherboard and a Dual-Core 525 Atom processor. Not exactly a speed burner, but it’ll get the job done.

The rear of the machine has the usual modern complement of USB ports and DVI video out. A Blu-Ray capable DVD R/W is optional from the side.

The unit comes with a version of Ubuntu Linux, and eventually you will be able to boot into the old Commodore operating system. It looks like that feature is not ready for prime time as yet/

Apparently, you’ll be able to load Windows on this computer, too. When you boot up, you’ll be able to choose which operating system to use.

Related articles

• Commodore 64 Returns as More Powerful Machine (shoppingblog.com)
• The New Commodore 64 (hardware.slashdot.org)
• Commodore64 – The New Hotness! (nerdjunkies.com)

Update 04/11/11 – Google has fixed both of these issues mentioned below. It appears that they fixed it by upgrading the Google Apps version of GMail to the version that free GMail already had.

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Google recently rolled out a nifty new feature for GMail Labs called SmartLabels. Since they are in the Labs section, you have to go in and activate it in order to make it work. Be forewarned, however, that the SmartLabels function in any GMail account that is attached to Google Apps is missing some key pieces that are essential if it’s going to work right. We’ll highlight that in a moment.

According to Google, SmartLabels will help classify your incoming email for you, somewhat like the Priority Inbox does. While the Priority Inbox highlights email in your inbox that it feels is more important, SmartLabels takes incoming email and classifies it as “Bulk”, for things like advertisements, “Forums”, for forum or mailing list email, and “Notifications” for things like announcements. It then moves those emails under those labels for later reading.

Right out of the box, SmartLabels makes some pretty good guesses, and Google tells us that we can filter around it and notify them of misclassified email. That right there is the problem with GMail accounts attached to Google Apps. Even though you can activate SmartLabels in a GMail account attached to Google apps, both of these pieces are missing.

Let me show you a filter box on an ordinary GMail account with SmartLabels activated -

Then let me show you a filter box from my GMail account that’s attached to Google Apps -

As you can see, the regular GMail account has a category drop down box when SmartLabels are activated. Since the Google Apps version of GMail does not have this, it becomes difficult to generate filters in association with SmartLabels.

The other problem we Google Apps users have is that we have no way to report to Google that email has been mis-categorized. On a regular GMail account, you now have a new choice on the drop down list in an email -

When you are in your GMail that is connected with Google Apps, you are not given this choice, so you have no way to report back to Google.

Even so, I have activated SmartLabels on my Google Apps GMail account and it’s been pretty accurate so far. On the emails that weren’t categorized correctly, I’ve just manually adjusted. I’ve seen these problems reported in the GMail help forums, but there has not been an official response from Google as to when they are going to fix this.

One last thing, when you activate SmartLabels, it goes through your mailbox and categorizes your existing email. It may take a while, and you may have to correct some of their guesses.

Blogger Buzz: Introducing Blogger Android App

I finally got around to trying out the Blogger Android App, It became available in the Android Market recently. After trying  a few test posts on a test blog that I have, I have to say it’s a useful tool for those on the run.

The things I like:

1. Being able to switch easily between accounts and blogs. I  only have two Google accounts and the both share the same blogs, but someone with a setup that’s more complex would find this easy to use.
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2. Nice large buttons for publishing, savings as a draft or deleting
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3. It’s nicely integrated with the camera in the phone, so you can take a picture and immediately post it to your blog.
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4. It’s also nicely integrated with the my Android phone’s built in browser. Anytime you’re browsing and something on a page catches your eye, just go to the menu and find the share option and and you are ready to type up that post that you know that everyone wants to read.
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5. It’s very easy to view all of your posts, whether they are published or still in draft form.
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6. Last but but not least, the app is smooth and responsive. That makes it a real pleasure to use.

Once again – you can get it at the Android Market. Try it! I think you will like it.

A few weeks ago, I decided to buy a Sprint HTC Evo 4G and leave my venerable Blackberry Tour 9630 behind. It was a tough decision because I’ve been a Blackberry guy since 2004, except for a brief and disastrous flirtation with a Windows Mobile Verizon VX6700. I still shudder to think about it

To the left, you can see the “tub” that the EVO comes in, rather than a box. I bought this online from Radio Shack and the ordering process was smooth and fast. Delivery was also quick, considering that I had bought it just before New Year’s day

A quick inspection of the contents showed everything to be there, and in good shape. No scratches and no dents. Documentation was fairly brief, which is the norm nowadays, as most of the detailed documentation is a PDf file on a CD or online

Size -

After taking it out of the box, it was obvious I was going to have to adjust to the larger size in comparison to my old Tour.

I had held one in the store, but actually owning one now, I was thinking that I might have made a mistake. Writing this now a few weeks later, I can say my fears were quickly overcome. In daily use, it’s size is actually not that noticeable. I don’t use a holster or case, it just goes right in my pocket. That helps keep the size down. I do not have large hands either, yet it is easy to hold.

Performance -

After using the EVO for a few weeks, I can say that the performance blows the Tour away. I was used to the cramped, slow browser of the Tour, so I was amazed at how smooth and fast the EVO’s stocl browser was. And you know what? I rarely use the 4G mode, as I find that browsing under 3G is still considerably faster than the Tour.

I haven’t had to reboot the phone too many times, but the reboot times easily beat the 6-8 minutes of the Tour. Apps from the app store manage to install themselves without having to reboot the device, unlike the Tour.

Lastly, even though both devices are on the Sprint network, the radio in the EVO consistently pulled in a better signal than the Tour. I went to a number of locations where I knew that I had either gotten no signal or a weak signal with the Tour. In each instance of where the EVO got no signal, the EVO pulled at least a fair signal or even a good one.

So, for all you Tour owners out there, Sprint’s network may not be to blame for your weak or no signal problems.

The elephant in the room -

Yes, I’m talking about the battery. Face it, I knew going in that the battery was not going to last me as long as the Tour’s. And I was right. If there is a downside to the EVO, you have to be get used to watching your battery levels.

Shortly after I got the EVO, I purchased a SEIDIO 1750 mAh battery. That made a considerable difference. With quite normal use, the battery lasts me all day. If I have to make a number of calls, I throw it on a charger for a half hour and I’m good to go.

One other feature where it doesn’t outshine the Tour is in handling email. If you’re on an Exchange server, as I am, the stock mail handler doesn’t handle email as seamlessly as a Blackberry. It does do it though. I’m going to be looking at some of the third-party apps to see if I can improve that.

Bottom line – I like the EVO. Its advantages over the Blackberry outweigh the few disadvantages. The transition was a lot easier than I thought it would be. -SM-

About 10 or 12 years ago, there were a number of sites selling storage on the web. One of them I used for a while was XDrive.

At the time, I thought it was pretty cool. You could get up to 100 megabytes of storage for free! Courtesy of the Wayback machine at archive. org, here is what XDrive’s web site looked like back in 2000.

Here is what their web site looks like now. As you can see, they’re no longer in business. Myself, I stopped using them and their competitors after a while because in most cases, the interfaces were clumsy and really not all that easy to use. It became more convenient to use a flash or thumb drive, which were starting to get popular and less expensive.

That’s pretty much how I operated over the years. I would see other online storage operations come and go, and I didn’t pay much attention. About a year and half ago, I read about Dropbox and didn’t really think much of it at the time.

Recently, I was reading an article in MaximumPC magazine where they showed how to keep track of your passwords using a combination of the open source password tracker program KeePass and Dropbox.

In working through hows this should work, I decided to sign up for the basic 2Gb free Dropbox account.

After playing with Dropbox for a while, I actually paid for an entire year of 50Gb storage. What sold me on this was one feature. On any given day, I may be on as many as four or five different computers between work and home. Having that much storage in the “cloud” was great, but what if that cloud goes away?

Here’s the feature. On any computer you may use, you can install the Dropbox client and Dropbox will synch all your files to a Dropbox folder on that computer. Wait, it get’s better. As you make changes to the files or add or subtract from that folder, those changes are synched to all the other computers where you installed the Dropbox client.

If the computers are on the same network, Dropbox is intelligent enough to do the synch over the local network instead of going out and coming back in.

A good example of this is just the other day, I finally fixed the fan on my ThinkPad T42 and installed Windows 7 on it. I also installed the Dropbox client and within a couple of hours, the Dropbox folder on the ThinkPad matched all the other computers.

There are many other features, but this synch feature really sold me. For those who don’t want to synch, there is an web interface that functions very well.

http://www.dropbox.com

Just a short posting in this subject. I needed to renew our SSL certificate on one of our Windows Server 2003 machines. We’ve always used GoDaddy, and never had a problem renewing in the past.

This time around, GoDaddy no longer issues 1024 bit certificates. You have to replace those with a minimum of 2048.

I attempted to just replace the 1024 bit certificate with a 2048 bit replacement and found that I could not do that on II6.

Save yourself a little aggravation. You have to remove the old 1024 bit certificate and then install the new 2048 bit certificate in its place. Doesn’t take too long at all.

As I posted on 3/29,  I had finally come to the conclusion that Google’s Blogger service was seriously broken.

Since that time, I’ve continued to read the Blogger help forums (it’s actually like not being able to look away from a car accident),  and searching blogs continues not working.

Additionally, it appears that if any appreciable change is made to a blog, such as changing from the generic blogspot domain to a custom domain, for example, you get treated to having your comments disappear. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t.

The one issue that bothers me the most, is that blogs continue to be deleted as spam blogs, when they aren’t. It’s been said by Google and some of their unofficial support staff that this happens because the spammers are just too good and that in a lot of cases they are scraping legit blogs which makes it difficult for Google’s automated spam checker to tell which is spam and which is legit.

I think it’s more of a case that Google just doesn’t have their act together. I’m seeing more and more cases of private blogs (not visible to the public) getting whacked by their spam checker. Here is a case of a poor soul with what he thought was a blog visible only to him getting deleted as a spam blog:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=5197024060933acb&hl=en

Shoddy operation, Google, just plain shoddy. Obviously, this content can’t be scraped by spammers, and if the content is not available to the public, why is Google scanning it?

It just amazes me that Google can be so good at something like GMail, and yet so entirely bad with something like Blogger or Google Groups, which is a subject for another day.

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• When Google Bans Its Own Discussion Group (googlesystem.blogspot.com)

When working on a desktop or notebook computer, it’s alway advisable to use quality tools. There is nothing worse than having to do a screw extraction because you used an inferior screwdriver and managed to strip the screw head. It’s definitely time and money lost.

I’ve been looking for a quality screwdriver set, particularly for working on notebooks. During my search I came across what looked to be the answer, the Platinum Tools screwdriver set – 33 piece.

I bought it at   Cyberguys, and it was reasonably priced at $27.44 with shipping.  Here’s what you get:

Pozi Drive PZ1 and PZ0

Phillips 000, 00, 0, 1

Slotted 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0. 3.5, 4.0

Torx 4.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20

Hex 0.7, 0.9, 1.3, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 4.0

M5 Socket, M6 Socket, M4 Shaft

The screwdriver itself has a soft handle (which I like), and the tail end rotates, so you can hold it there and stabilize it even while turning the screwdriver. As you can see from the pictures, the screwdriver itself can be extended to a 9.5″ length. None of the pieces in this set look or feel cheap and look to last a long time. I’ve already used it during a couple of recent projects and was impressed with the quality.

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• 12 Tools Every Man Must Have (lewrockwell.com)

Just recently, I signed up for Clearwire’s Wireless Broadband Service. It’s known commercially as “Clear“.

I got the $55 home and mobile setup. Sadly, I wasn’t paying attention and missed out on a $50 per month for life on the same setup.

Rather than be tied down to a 2 year contract, I purchased the modems for each service outright. I did the sign up on line, giving them my credit card information and a couple of days later, received two boxes at my doorstep.

One box contained the The CLEAR Modem – Series M, for my connection at home,

and the other contained the Clear 4G Mobile USB adapter, for “on the go” usage.

The Mobile USB Adapter came with a universal joint type extender. I guess you would use that if you were unable to get to your USB port directly. I could see that as an issue as the Mobile Adapter  was huge.

They also included a miniature USB drive with the Clear Connection Manager software. Nice touch, but I didn’t really need it as I had already downloaded the software from their web site.

The Series M Modem didn’t look much different than a regular DSL or cable modem. This also was a little bigger than I thought.

One confusing thing occurred. When you buy the two modems as I did, you actually have two accounts under your name. A little hard to describe,

but it was confusing during the setup, until I called their tech support line and it was explained to me. It does make sense when you realize that each modem is for a separate account as you could cancel either one and still maintain service.

Setup was painless. With the Mobile USB Adapter, you load theconnection manager software. Stick the adapter in the the USB slot, and after a moment, the connection is made. This being wireless, your location is going to be important for how you connect. Using this adapter at home on my notebook, I managed to get a consistent 6Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up. Pings were about 62ms. Not bad at all.

Taking that same notebook into my office, in an office inside a building, I had widely variable results for download, everything from 900k/s download to 2.5Mb/s download. Uploads seemed to stay at around 1Mb/s. Pings were averaging around 100ms. Not  bad but not great.

The Series M Modem at home didn’t even need the connection software. I just hooked it to one of my desktops and got a clean 6Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up with pings in the 60-70ms range.

I’m not ready to make these guys my primary provider, but so far, the service has been good.

One thing I have to mention, and the last picture does not do it credit. The connection light on the USB mobile adapter is as bright as a searchlight! And as you use the connection, it constantly flickers.

I had the lights off in the one room while it was on, and it looked like a light show was going on. I found it very distracting while trying to use the notebook. I could only imagine how it would look to someone sitting next to you on a commuter train. Reading the Clearwire forum at dslreports.com, provided me with a solution. I used a felt tip marker and covered the connection light. It does not eliminate the light, but it cuts down the brightness considerably.

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I first joined Blogger back in 2004. I didn’t start blogging in earnest until last year. The nice thing about Blogger is that it’s free. Unfortunately, the bad thing about Blogger is that it’s free.

That may seem to be a contradiction, but it’s true. Blogger is free and there are a lot of great tools that they give you. This also attracts a lot of people who attempt to use Blogger as a spamming tool. Blogger is a huge operation and they use automated tools to try and stop the spammers.

While using Blogger, I was a frequent reader of their help forums. I learned  a lot just by reading the questions and answers that were being given. It was there that I found out that I was not alone with not being able to search my blog posts. This problem has gone unsolved by Google since last July. This was my first reason for not using Blogger any more.

Over time, I saw an increase in people complaining about there blogs being deleted as spam blogs. I started looking at the cached version of their blogs on Google search.

I found that in a lot of cases, the blogs being deleted did not appear to be spam blogs. Of course, a lot of them appeared to be just that, spam blogs.

This made me institute frequent blog back ups as I could see there was an increase of ordinary blogs being targeted by the automated tools. Eventually, the lack of action on the blog search lead me to move my blogs to a web host and use WordPress. I left the old blogs behind at Blogger, with one post pointing to the new location. Here is the second reason I stopped using Blogger:

This is what I got in email on 3/28/10:

Hello,

Your blog at http://smocek.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: SPAM. In accordance to these terms, we’ve removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible.

For more information, please review the following resources:

Blogger Terms of Service: http://blogger.com/terms.g
Blogger Content Policy: http://blogger.com/content.g

-The Blogger Team

Keep in mind, there is only the one post pointing to stanmocek.com. So, I go to the help forums, and do the 4 step process to have it undeleted, and this is what I get in email last night:

Your blog at http://smocek.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: NONE. In accordance to these terms, we’ve removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible.

Even though my violation of Terms of Service is NONE, the blog is deleted. I’ve asked in the help forums for another review, but I’m not too hopeful.  I doubt that I will be going back to Blogger.

They’ve become too big, and the tools they are using are too feeble and inaccurate. Be forewarned, if you continue to use Blogger, make sure you back up your content frequently.

Update:

Looks like the second request for review cleared the hurdle and the the blog has been restored! Maybe there is hope yet. I still think they need to get better controls in place, and maybe even go to a two tier system, one free and one paid, with better support.