Spinrite - Great Utility, Stupid Company?

While talking computer troubleshooting with a friend he commented that in all his years of troubleshooting he'd never HAD to reformat a harddrive. "Wow," I said, "very impressive." He then mentioned a tool that help with a lot of harddrive based problems, Sprinrite. I'd always considered buying Spinrite, but hadn't. It is developed by Steve Gibson, who has a pretty good reputation on the net in the areas of security and harddrives. I've used ShieldsUP!, the Internet security testing utility, and UnPlug n' Pray, to turn off Windows' UPnP Internet service. So, after his comment I went to the Spinrite website. Now I remember why I've never bought it.

1. They don't have a demo version. Okay, I can kind of understand that with a disk utility. Download the demo when you have an emergency problem, then never buy it. Of course, you could argue that providing a demo just for that purpose would create some pretty good customer mojo.
2. They don't have online sales. I have to CALL them. Stupid, stupid, stupid. So, I guess I find a copy on some pirate CD (live in Indonesia, remember) and pay them when I get a around to it. Never really any excuse for not supporting online sales these days.

12:14:22 PM     

Fuzzygroup Non-profit work?

"the FuzzyGroup is still going forward and continuing to focus on our work with non-profit organizations as well as in the open source arena."

I knew Scott was involved in open source, but not non-profit work. Wonder what kind of groups Scott is working with? Scott?

11:45:48 AM     

Future of Indonesia

Battle of the Greens The military and radical Muslims square off once again in Indonesia, in a confrontation with far-reaching consequences for the worldwide struggle against Islamic extremism.

OR

11:37:51 AM     

categories: Family & Friends, Indonesia

Joe Icon

Mark is iconic. Apple's released a set of icons based on the people in its "Switch" campaign, including our very own Mark "Shlub" Frauenfelder! Link   [Boing Boing Blog]

This is too cool. I want my own icon for my weblog! What vanity. Okay, I'm going to have to find a local Indonesian cartoonist to make me one.

8:36:50 AM     

Neighborhood-wide wireless

Boing Boing has a post about a neighborhood-wide, wireless, internet access option that looks very cool. Take a look at the Motorola Canopy site for more information. This could be a very interesting option for some Indonesian communities.

7:37:34 AM     

Celebrating the 4th in Indonesia

Cyber-fireworks explode on the Web. What looks like fireworks, sounds like fireworks and even comes complete with patriotic music, without the hassles of crowds, traffic jams and those annoying ants known to frequent Independence Day picnics? [MSNBC]

I think that the computer will have to provide our fireworks display today. It is hard to be away from the good ole USofA on this day.

7:26:49 AM     

categories: Family & Friends

C Compiler need to install software on Linux???

"even though I'm not much of a C programmer, you really do need it on any *nix system since you have to somewhat regularly use it to install software." [The FuzzyBlog!]

UGH! Is this really true? I just started to play with linux, just happens to be the same version that Scott "Mr. Fuzzy" is using. I didn't install the dev tools, since I don't code. I can't imagine needing to have the c compiler for installing software. Am I misunderstanding something here?

7:15:16 AM