Why is Adobe so Sneaky?

Adobe has been doing this for quite some time:

For whatever reason, I guess some kind of financial gain, they decide to it is a good idea to sneak in a copy of McAfee Security Scan Plan on one's PC when a person is not watching carefully when installing or upgrading the Flash player.

What I don't understand is: McAfee? Really, Adobe?

Installing Windows 7 on a Samsung Ultrabook

Windows 8 seems still hated by many. After using its successor, the 8.1 upgrade briefly, I have actually grown to accept it. I like its hot corners and the ability to search for apps or online resources in a single search box. When a friend asked me to install Windows 7 on his new Samsung Ultrabook, I upgraded it to Windows 8.1 first and asked him to give it another try. But he asked again in a few weeks, so I accepted the challenge.

His Samsung Ultrabook NP540U3C-A03UB is a nicely built little machine, thin, light weight, with a battery that seems to last long enough, although with the screen size it could have had a higher resolution display. I didn't expect it to be an real challenge, so I was a little disappointed to find it not able to connect to my home wireless network, or even the wired Ethernet after finished installing Windows 7. But when I found no Windows 7 driver download on Samsung's website for this model, I became a little annoyed.

Samsung was nice enough to have a live chat link on the support site. So I started a chat window and connected to a support tech pretty quickly. We went back and forth for a few rounds on what my OS was and my dilemma of not being able to find drivers on the website for it. Then he told me that it meant that the PC was not compatible with Windows 7. I told him that was the most incredible thing I had heard in a long time and closed the chat.

I don't blame the support tech. It was not his fault that Samsung decided to not provide any Windows 7 support for this laptop. Samsung probably got financial benefits from Microsoft for doing so to push Windows 8 and ignore their own customers.

So I had to go on my own. The support tech did provide a useful tip, which was that I could use the Samsung SW Update tool on a non-Samsung PC. I did that. First I found an earlier model of the Ultrabook, NP540U3C-A03UB, which did support Windows 7, and downloaded the Wireless LAN drivers. Luckily, the two models did use the same (or similar) Intel Centrino wireless chip that the driver worked.

Once on the network, I was able to download and install the Samsung SW Update tool on the Ultrabook. Then I was able to find a list of the drivers available for Windows 8 on this machine and compare the list to other Samsung models with the same or similar hardware that support Windows 7. From there, finding and installing all drivers, except for the touch screen, became much easier.

It turned out, I was able to get all drivers from two other Samsung models:

From NP530U3C-A03US, I got:

• Wireless LAN driver, which I later upgraded to the latest version found on Intel's website.
• Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000, Intel® Iris™ and HD graphics Driver
• USB 3.0: Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver

From  NP550P5C-A03US:

• Chipset: Chipset Driver
• Intel Management Engine (ME)  Interface: Intel ME Interface Driver
• Ethernet: LAN Driver
• Utilities:
• Easy Settings
• Easy Software Manager
• EasyFileShare
• ExpressCache
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology

After that, the Ultrabook became a fully functional Windows 7 machine.

Cisco IOS Tidbit

When testing a SNMP configuration for Cisco switches, I wanted to use a named access list to give SNMP v2c access a bit security. I started with an extended IP ACL.

When I configured an SNMP community string:

snmp-server community blahblah ro acl-snmp-read-only

The switch accepted that command.

But when I then do a "show running-config", my configuration is not there.

It seems that Cisco IOS doesn't really allow extended access list. But it doesn't tell you either. The "snmp-server community" command is simply silently dropped. This seems to be the case with code version from 12.2(55)SE4 on a C3750 to 03.01.01.SG on a Catalyst 4500 L3 switch.

Fun with Comcast begins -- Cable TV is Dead!

Fun with Comcast begins.

Over the holiday season just passed, I finally changed my ISP from ATT Uverse to Comcast. When paying my first bill online, I noticed a $39.99 charge that was labeled "miscellaneous charge". So I called Comcast's customer service. Twenty some minutes later, I got a rep on the phone and was told that was a charge for a "Technician visit".

I told him I never ordered a "technician visit", nor did a technician visit my house.

He told me to hold the phone. Two minutes later, he returned and told me that the charge had been removed.

That was pretty quick. But the fun part was yet to come.

When we finished the business about my first bill, I mentioned to the rep that I received a TV set top box that I was not going to use, so I would like to know if I could just drop it at a local Comcast office.

I was really surprised then, when I was told that I could not "not use" the TV set-top box, that I had to activate it, or the service bundle would be revoked and I would have to pay more.

I asked, so even if I paid for the bundled services and I decided to not use part of it, I could not do that?

"No", the service rep replied. "We would not be able to prove that we provided the bundled services to you. So you would have to pay the unbundled price."

Hmm, I didn't buy that, but I didn't want to make that into an argument. So I just said "Interesting!" and let it go.

The Comcast device is still in its cardboard box. I do not intend to use it. I have no interest in cable TV programs.

CABLE TV IS DEAD! I guess Comcast don't want to accept that. We'll see.

Good-Bye, at&t!

I strongly disagrees with at&t on the "Weev" case based on this Wired report (AT&T Hacker 'Weev' Sentenced to 3.5 Years in Prison). If the report is not proven wrong, I am going to say good-bye to at&t.

Maybe for good this time.

At&t 2Wire Gateway

I have to delete a previous post as the rant was off the target: I thought that at&t might be blocking ports entering my home. But the real problem turns out to be in the 2Wire gateway device -- more specifically, in its firewall settings. I forgot to check if my previous setting was changed. But anyway, resetting its firewall to expose the next router as a DMZ device -- which is where my port forwardings are configured -- has solved the problem.

At&t may still be to blame, as the firewall configuration change could not have happened by itself, but could have been the result of firmware upgrade in the gateway, or something like that.

Password? What password?

This morning I mindlessly did an iOS upgrade -- I came into work, plugged my iPhone to charge it; iTunes popped up and prompted me to do some upgrade. I haven't had my morning coffee yet, so I just clicked OK. When I realized it was upgrading my phone, the process was already well under way. So I decided to let it go ahead -- I am now regretting that (non-)decision.

I was working on my PC doing whatever I was supposed to do. Then this screen popped up:

I thought, hmmm.... What does that mean? Was the upgrade completed? Or did it fail?

At that point, it didn't seem that there was anything else I could do. So, I went along. Then I got this:

That made me a bit nervous. If this warning came earlier, I might have stopped the upgrade even not being fully awake. But at this point, what could I do? So I hit Restore and Update.

Now that's strange! I didn't see it doing the backup. So I definitely did not set a password on the backup. I tried my Apple account password, my Windows password, etc. It just kept giving me the same password ... was incorrect message.

So I googled iPhone upgrade backup password. This one came up on top of the result:

To put it mildly, I have never liked Apple products. Now this is pushing my dislike to a level of hatred.