Difficulty downloading a blog

I have no internet connection at home at the moment (one of the perils of relying on a free wi-fi service) so I'm having to access the internet in the local library. And this is causing one or two problems. The first is the pressure to work within the constraints of an hour's computer access at any one time; I'm using that as an excuse for the mean-spirited nature of my first edit for this post, which I've now rewritten in it's entirety.

There’s a very enjoyable blog I like to visit regularly; however this is taking anything up to a quarter of an hour for the home page to download. The blog currently displays the last 50 posts which include a lot of photographs, so this is not surprising.

So I left a comment, asking if the number of posts displayed on the home page could be reduced. The blog owner very reasonably responded by saying that she had no problem on her computer, and liked to keep a large number of posts showing as she wanted to give first time visitors a full sense of the range of her blog. She then asked if anyone else was experiencing the same problem. Two of her regular visitors quickly responded, saying that they had very quick downloads with no problem whatever, and one suggested that I was unreasonably expecting downloads 'at the drop of a hat', which is not what I am expecting at all.

They fail, of course, to appreciate how browsers and html actually work. So let me explain. When anyone visits a webpage, their computer stores that webpage in it’s ‘internet cache’. This means that when they return to the page they only download the elements of the page that have changed since their last visit. First time visitors though have to download the entire page and on this particular blog that is very large at 6.2 MB. And because I work on a public terminal, the internet cache is cleared every time I log out. If I visit that same page more than once in any single session, I experience the same quick download (around 2 seconds) as the other regular visitors.

There is also the issue of html. Blog owners who upload pictures are placing them on file sharing sites where each individual image is given it’s own webpage. When you view a blog the images themselves do not download as part of the page; rather the html script that downloads provides links to each of the webpages where the images are stored and they each download separately. I would estimate that there are around 200 - 250 images displayed on the homepage of the blog in question (it’s too large to count) and this means that my browser is attempting to make a large number of simultaneous downloads, way beyond the processing abilities of all but the most powerful computers. This causes the computer to slow, and extends the download time far further. And I know that a surprising majority of internet users are still using quite elderly computers; the stats for my own blogs show that around 5% of my visitors are using IE5 as their browser, which means that their PCs are more than 12 years old.

There is a further complication in that blog owners tend to upload photos in considerably higher resolution than they are displayed on the blog. This means that the images require scaling down, and a further delay in downloading, when the page is being opened.

Unfortunately, a large homepage does not enhance the experience of the first time visitor. The download time is such that they are not even likely to complete it, let alone read the blog. And if they do actually sit it out they are entitled to feel aggrieved that the blog owner has presumed that they wish to make such a large download to view a blog that they may or may not enjoy. People on broadband contracts that restrict their monthly download can easily find themselves pushed into penalty charges if they visit too many pages of such size.

My advice to blog owners is simple – the more images you display on your posts, the more you need to limit the number of posts displayed at any one time. After all, that is the reason blogger set their default display at 10 posts.

Kerry's LimeWire Tunes

I updated my iTunes a couple of days ago. Today I got something of a surprise, as it switched from the podcast that was downloading to a shared folder called Kerry's LimeWire Tunes. And scrolling down the list of tunes displayed, I found as soon as I got beyond the initial visible titles that there was a substantial collection of porno videos. Each to their own and all that, but I certainly hadn't invited this list to put in an appearance on my PC.

It wasn't difficult to work out how to stop it coming back (Edit / Preferences / Sharing - untick the box 'Look for Shared Libraries'). But what really gets my goat is that Apple resets my preferences when I install their update without so much as a by-your-leave. That Steve Jobs likes to think he's a clever bloke; overpriced mobiles that won't even work with G3, and now a laptop that's about the thickness of a cigarette paper, very handy if you never want to put a CD or DVD into it no doubt, but can't he get the iTunes updates to install without fiddling with my existing settings? You'd think he'd be up to it, wouldn't you? Fat chance....

I'm being a bit unfair actually. This latest iTunes finally lets individual users on PCs change their download formats regardless of whether they're Administrators or not. It's taken them five years or more but they've cracked it at last. Nice one, Steve...

HP Share-to-Web

For a long time now I've had a Hewlett-Packard 4670 Scanjet scanner. The flat see-through one that can be separated into two halves, and works vertically on a stand. A really intelligent piece of design that you either love or loathe. And most of those who loathe it do so because of the software, rather than the scanner itself.

HP have something of a reputation for their software, and it's not a good one, unfortunately. A lot of the problems focus on an add-on to their software called Share-to-Web. If only HP had made the installation optional, but they don't (or certainly didn't); if you want the scanning software you have to have it at the same time. STW doesn't show up at all on the Add/Remove Programs list, so you can't take it off there either. And it has worsening compatibility issues with Windows XP post SP2; Microsoft have themselves confirmed the problems although HP seem to be in some sort of denial.

I rid myself of the irritant Share-to-Web icon as soon as I installed the software (by right-clicking the icon, properties, and selecting 'do not show') but when a friend asked me to do the same for her recently I couldn't. Right-clicking the icon (which isn't a shortcut incidentally, it's the actual folder that sits on the desktop) simply produced the endless hourglass and an all-but-locked-up computer. Googling the problem showed that there were lots of fellow sufferers, but not quite as many with solutions. So here's how I managed to be rid of it once and for all:

1. Logged in as an administrator, run 'msconfig' via the start menu. This opens the System Configuration Utility. On the Startup tab, untick the box for 'hpgs2wnd' and click OK. Now restart the PC, and when you get a warning come up saying that the system configuration has been altered, tick the box that stops it telling you again.

2. Open the Share-to-Web folder in C:\Program Files\Hewlett-Packard\. Delete a file called hpgs2wnd.exe. Now click on the STW icon; The HP software starts repeatedly unsuccessfully trying to install.

3. Restart your PC again. Now the STW icon has gone, and you can delete the whole Share-to-Web folder. STW has gone, and the scanning software still works perfectly.

4. One thing left to do. There's the Share-to-Web Upload folder which is in the owner's 'Send To' folder (find it through C:\Documents and Settings\Name of owner. Send to is a hidden file, so you'll need to make sure that viewing them is enabled. The STW Upload folder can just be deleted.

5. It's not essential, but if you've got a registry cleaner it's worth running that.

I'm pleased to have finally uprooted this particular piece of software, and when I get back to my own PC I'm going to go through the same procedure and take it off for good. Hewlett-Packard are by no means alone in forcing you to have unnecessary software when you install something that you do need and it's a real pain. As for the 4670, it's been out of production for some time now, and HP have no plans to provide full support with Vista. That doesn't bother me, I've no plans to get Vista either. Despite the software issues, I'd still recommend it for anyone who's staying with XP.

That video at last...

Well, it's been installed, it works, and this far I'm very pleased with it. Those who've never really had the confidence to put one of these in will probably be interested to know how (relatively) easy it was to fit. In fact it would have been installed and running in less than 15 minutes if it were not for a couple of annoying problems (they sound far worse than they really were, so you absolutely shouldn't let them put you off going down this route). These top two pictures show it installed exactly as the printer would be when I'm printing.

I bought my system from City Ink Express. The R285 wasn't listed on their site when I ordered (although it is now) so I ordered the R265 version, which is presumably the same and cost £38.99 (+ £4.95 postage). They sent it very promptly, first class recorded delivery. It is packaged as the 'Colorfly' brand, although branding is often all but meaningless on these generic Chinese products. The first surprise was the instruction book, which was pretty comprehensive, straightforward, and well illustrated. And the English wasn't too bad either.

The only difficult part of the installation was removing the clip that secures the ink carriage cover, and I've managed to get it out twice without any damage now. It does require a reasonable amount of (careful) pressure, prising the clip towards the front of the printer before it can be lifted clear.Getting the cartridges and tubing installed was simplicity itself, with the amount of tubing that you need to leave looped for the carriage to have full travel pretty easy to judge (the tubing clips seemed to have been well positioned for sticking in from the off). The clips secure with sticky pads, one inside the printer, the other outside (these photos show exactly how it fitted). Check the carriage travel, then power the printer up and you're away. Hopefully.

Well, I wasn't, unfortunately; the printer refused to recognise one of the cartridges. So I removed the system, refitted the original Epsons which worked fine, and carefully cleaned the contacts on the chip of the problematic cartridge. But when I refitted the system, no improvement, so I rang Shane at Ink City who was really helpful. He said that the cartridge concerned must have a faulty chip, and that he would get another one out in the post for me straight away. But now the real problem; when I tried to remove the system again the ink carriage wouldn't position properly for me to get the cartridges out. With hindsight, I should have unscrewed the printer casing, but I thought I could manoeuvre them out. But by then the printer had had enough, the carriage wouldn't position correctly at all and it didn't want to recognise any of the Epson cartridges either. Presumably there was some sort of circuit failure in the printer, and my first thought was that it was connected with the CISS problem, although now I'm inclined to think that it was entirely co-incidental. So the printer had to go back and I had to wait, not only for the arrival of the new cartridge but the replacement printer. Shane did reassure me that if I had any problem over the warranty for the printer then Ink City would sort it for me.

Once the new printer arrived a couple of days later and I got the replacement cartridge, I had the system re-installed in a matter of minutes. And when I powered up, full recognition of the cartridges, so I was ready to go. After a couple of prints I knew it all worked well. And the print quality is really excellent (see my last post for more on that).

There are still one or two little bits to finalise. In particular the blue tubing clip which shows up on the top of the cartridges. The R285 has absolutely minimal headroom, and the clip tends to knock against the roof of the printer each time the carriage gets to the left side. This is inherent in the tube positioning used here which operates with the tubing twisted by 90 degrees between the carriage and the clip inside the front of the printer. But with space so tight, it is difficult to see any alternative. It doesn't effect the printing in any way, but the click-click-click gets annoying after a while. In the video I put a strip of tape over it, which solved the problem very effectively, but is not the greatest aesthetic solution. I've now put a small double-sided sticker under the clip, and hope that holds; we'll see. And I'm not entirely sure about the five remaining original cartridges and their chips; a couple of times now all five suddenly showed up as empty when the printer was turned on, although a cartridge change cycle restored them to action. My first thought was that the chips weren't latest spec, but I've had one out to check and it definitely is. So my instinct at this point is that whatever electrical event it was that caused the failure in my first printer has in some way affected them.

Chip compatibility is an issue with the latest generation Epson printers; Epson have taken to changing the cartridge chip coding from time to time in order to stay one step ahead of the suppliers of compatible products. This is tiresome in an extreme, and means it's best to play safe and keep away from software updates for the printer once everything is working.

I've just had Shane get back in touch, and he is confident that turning off the Epson Status Monitor on my PC will solve the problem with the chips, so I've done that and hopefully it'll all be sorted. I'll let you know how it goes.

The only other thing to mention is that the bag of small accessories inside the Colorfly box was split, and several minor bits and pieces were missing. Since all the six balance valves for the ink reservoirs were there it was no great problem, although in truth I could have done with the spare pads shown on the parts list because after removing my system twice the originals weren't as sticky as they had been first time round. And I was surprised that they only supply a single syringe; I know that quite a few manufacturers provide one per colour, and that seems to make more sense.

You'll probably think that it all sounds like too much bother, but in truth it just comes over as being far worse than it actually was. I'm sure that it was simply bad luck that I had the chip problems; there's just no way you can eliminate encountering that sort of occasional manufacturing fault. Nevertheless, despite that very minor aggro, I am very pleased, and very happy with the support from Ink City; I'll certainly be recommending them, since you only really find out how helpful a business is when things go wrong, and they've definitely been both helpful and patient. And I'll definitely encourage friends to think about switching to a CISS too; I know that most CISS installations are absolutely painless, so doubt very much that they'd have the hassle I've experienced, and even with all that it's been more than worthwhile.

If I was going to give one bit of advice on fitting a CISS, it would just be to get straight back to your supplier if it doesn't work right from the off. Too much tinkering in hope just increases the chance of something going wrong.

So finally, here's that video of the printer in action. Waiting for a sunny day to film it put the kiss of death on the sunshine, so I've gone with this on a temporary basis. It shows an A4 colour print from start of printing to end, so if you're interested you'll be able to see how fast it prints (remember though that I use the 'photo' rather than 'best photo' setting). I've not given any commentary but don't worry; as soon as there's brighter weather I'll replace this with something better, and talk you through it too (an edit here to say I've now shot that second video and added it at the end of the post instead). When you start watching this one I'm afraid that you will need a little patience; trust me, I do lift the lid of the printer up after 20 seconds!

As a footnote: the photo I'm printing here shows my best friend Lorna Bratton on Gwithian beach one evening; the two of us had just spent a fairly damp day in St. Ives. Lorna's photographing a really spectacular dark cloudy sky that had developed over St Ives. I'm looking north towards Godrevy Island, the home of Virginia Woolf's iconic literary lighthouse.

No sooner had I posted a video complaining about the dull weather than we have a brighter day; isn't that always the way? I've posted this as a second video as it was a rather nice picture of Lorna printing in the first one, and because this one has turned out very much on the dark side. My camera simply doesn't offer a fast enough ASA, and fitting a mirror over the printer to reflect light in feels rather excessive somehow. But here it is anyway. Sticking that blue clip down on the cartridges has worked well. Ignore my comment about the printer moving; I should have just said that it shakes a little when it's flat out. The photo here is a view looking down to St. Ives earlier that same day; the weather was merely overcast at that point.

Sorry but I'm no Martin Scorsese....

Inks and Cartridges

It's grey and overcast here right now, so I'm unlikely to be videoing my CISS in full flight today. But I can comment on the ink quality as against that of the Epson Claria inks supplied with the printer.

It's always a bit of a gamble using 'compatible' products, particularly with ink, where it's simply impossible to assess the permanence of the results. I have however been using compatibles for the last 10 years now, almost exclusively for photographic work, and at this point my earliest prints have lasted quite as well as those printed with OEM ink. One of the other problems with compatibles is shifting ink formulations; it's difficult to be certain that the ink you buy one month is going to be the same as the one you'll get the next. Not least this is because UK distributors can start to source from a different supplier, or simply because branding on these generic Chinese products is always a little on the vague side. But again, I can say that I've not experienced any problems whatever so far.

When I am printing photos, I tend to normally print on the same media, and to use the same printer settings, which at least produces consistent results. And I think that the media is a far bigger factor in determining the final quality of the print than the ink. I use Epson Premium Glossy paper, and get excellent results with it. I prefer to have my printer set for 'standard' rather than the Epson 'vivid' default. And if the ink dictated it, I would tweak the colour balance for the best result. I print at 'Photo' rather than 'Best Photo' quality; it uses a hell of a lot less ink for an absolutely minimal drop in quality.

So how does the 'Colorfly' ink that came in my CISS compare with the Epson Claria? Remarkably well, actually. I have done several identical A4 prints with both inks, and the compatible ink colours are far more accurate than the Epson. The Claria has a pronounced magenta bias, which is clearly visible in flesh tones and light areas, and probably not quite enough yellow, as greens lean slightly towards the turquoise. This could of course though be dialled out. The Claria colours are also excessively saturated although most people tend to favour this; I actually prefer a more natural appearance. If I wanted stronger saturation with the compatible ink I would simply revert to the 'vivid' setting on the printer. So I'm happy, and I suspect most other users would be too.

Digressing slightly, I have been looking at various reviews and seeing repeated comments about ink consumption and the perception that there's a benefit of having individual ink cartridges. But is there any benefit? I certainly thought so when I decided to buy an R300, but now I rather suspect that it is actually the reverse. Firstly it seems to me that the Epson chips calculate ink consumption on the basis that you are producing prints with an average colour balance, that is to say that they don't actually measure your ink usage. There's only one way to definitively test this hypothosis; start with a full set of cartridges and repeatedly run off plain yellow prints. Either the yellow cartridge will empty while the others remain full, or they will all 'empty' at the normal relative rates (maybe I'll try one day). So your individual cartridges could be showing as empty when they are in fact completely full. And secondly, ink consumption is heaviest when a cartridge is replaced, as the ink supply to the head re-primes. And this priming draws off ink not only from the new cartridge, but from the partially-used cartridges that are in situ as well. So replacing a set of six cartridges on six different occasions draws off six times the amount of ink.

Priming the print head is done by pumping ink through the head, and out into a waste pad at the back of the computer. People who fit an external waste ink trap are always surprised by the amount of ink discarded in this process; something approaching 5mls. As a guestimate I would say around 10% of the content of the cartridge. And now that I've done the maths, I would say that a combined colour cartridge probably represents significantly better value than a set of individuals, as well as being far less hassle in terms of cartridge changing. These printer manufacturers; never miss a trick, do they?

I found a curious Epson Printer Support blog (I've linked to their R285 review). Despite its unquestioning enthusiasm for all things Epson (most posts sound as if they come straight from Epson's promotional literature) it surely can't be an official site. But I was interested to see that they identified the same magenta tinge in flesh tones with the Claria inks.

Bad Sector

Several months ago, I found that Norton Ghost failed to do one of it's scheduled backups. It was certainly running, because another backup (for a different drive) had backed up perfectly later the same night. I tried running the backups again with the same result. Checking the log confirmed that there was an error on the drive I was unsuccessfully attempting to backup.

I ran 'CHKDSK', but it failed to repair the error. So I ran Acronis Disk Director, which showed a single bad sector on the drive concerned. Now that disk is the original 10-year old 13GB drive, which has clearly exceeded its anticipated lifespan. And Ghost does offer an 'ignore bad sectors during copying' option which would have worked round the problem. But I didn't really want to go down that route; I felt that if I didn't remedy the fault immediately it would soon become beyond satisfactory resolution.

The online doom-and-gloom merchants all seemed to say the same thing: once you get a bad sector you need to change your hard drive pronto, or you'll lose the lot. Not a great problem, I had a recent backup of the disk that was error-free, but I didn't want the hassle or the expense; I seem to have spent too much time over the years tinkering with the innards of my PC for one reason or another. So I wiped the disk (using Disk Director from the boot - it was my C drive that was giving the problem), and then reformatted. Disk Director now showed the disk as error-free, and a restore from the Ghost image had everything back as it had been the week before. I only keep software on my C drive, so nothing lost from the seven days since that backup was made either. (Ed. See update below; wiping the unused portion of the drive is all that is required).

Well, that was 6 months ago, and the old Fujitsu hard drive is running as well as ever with no more problems at all. But this did encourage me to rethink the demands I place on the disk in terms of sheer usage. I haven't run the disk defragmenter since, I don't do full scans for viruses so regularly (just once a week now), and I generally try to be more selective in controlling background applications. I no longer leave Skype logged on as routine.

Do people really need to defragment their drives as often as many do? I doubt it somehow. Hardened games players may benefit from the increased speed but I doubt if the normal user notices any difference. And most people who defrag are doing so in the hope that it will solve other problems, such as the one that Microsoft Updates inflicts.

Changing the subject, the CISS is in my printer and working well. As soon as there's enough natural light to video it in action, I'll post in detail about the installation.

UPDATE: Since posting the above I have had two further bad sectors show up, on two different partitions across two further hard-drives. In each case, I have found that wiping the 'unused' section of the partition concerned cured the problem without any file removal whatever; clearly the problem lies (in my case at least) with the way the disks are storing the fragments of deleted files. For those that lack a disk wiping utility, I recommend Eraser by Heidi (a free download). It's probably the benchmark for such software. I'm using the 5.8.6 Beta with no problems whatever; I had to try several mirrors before I was able to get one that would actually give me the proper download (most but not all of those listed are free sites, so you don't need to pay).

Chain Mail, Phishing....

A brief note to explain why I don't like chain mail. People who send you chain mail share your email with an indeterminate number of people you don't know. And sooner or later your email passes into the public domain, and you find yourself bombarded with spam. And while most spam filters these days are pretty good at blocking it, you still have to check your 'junk' box to make sure nothing legitimate has got misdirected. In short, it's a pain.

So, for some time now, I've not passed it on, and sent polite 'No, thanks' notes to people who send it to me. But sooner or later someone else sends me one. So I'm putting a signature on my mail now telling people I don't welcome it. "I don't share my email with people I don't know. If you send me chain mail you're sharing it for me". I hope it doesn't sound rude....

As I've said before, everyone needs at least two email accounts. One should be used with friends and people you trust to respect your privacy; the other for everything else. My 'public' email gets loads of spam, but my private one hasn't had any this far (there, I've tempted fate, haven't I?).

The Velez-Diaz saga needs rounding off too. Their site reappeared, and this time a 'whois' actually gave the name, address, telephone, and email for Joanna Velez-Diaz, who was most surprised to hear from me. But it does seem that the site is legitimate, and the phishing pages were hacked into the site.

Finally, a mystery. Well a mystery to me that is; most computing bods will know exactly. I've seen phishes recently that have concealed code at the bottom (using white text on white background). It all looks rather like the stuff that comes up when you get the infamous BSOD, and no doubt has some malign intent, should you be foolish enough to open the email in say, Outlook, rather than using a web-based mail. But if you're passing by and know exactly what it does, please post a comment; I'd love to know. This, for example, was hidden at the end of a recent 'Royal Bank of Scotland' phish :
0x4228, 0x72761993, 0x40 start, tmp, update, NGL, XWBR 0x93889253, 0x26883050, 0x093, 0x4, 0x836, 0x267, 0x5, 0x79, 0x62 0x907, 0x0, 0x98175715, 0x96744278, 0x694, 0x7766 S5E: 0x059, 0x811, 0x42019273, 0x02119710, 0x6959, 0x4, 0x096, 0x86479479, 0x6544, 0x78, 0x75844392, 0x00, 0x447, 0x88, 0x921 0x342, 0x84, 0x00, 0x48622110, 0x70, 0x1208 source: 0x617, 0x33, 0x3560, 0x1, 0x211, 0x723, 0x2, 0x65, 0x49118100, 0x92, 0x84090947, 0x91769642, 0x12, 0x0100, 0x92263527 OBD: 0x536, 0x1214, 0x28 0x986, 0x9, 0x3

0x8396, 0x83, 0x36789709, 0x22, 0x3380, 0x4, 0x2, 0x74, 0x770, 0x087 DYX6: 0x3, 0x2, 0x11434130, 0x86353061, 0x0, 0x54717057 J5LB: 0x2, 0x78974884, 0x433, 0x91877241, 0x4, 0x81, 0x713, 0x836, 0x87301466, 0x6421, 0x34, 0x35, 0x8, 0x9569 dec stack TFRG Q8II serv cvs CWSM 04O HG1I. 0x7, 0x56, 0x1, 0x990, 0x6843, 0x14 OZ3: 0x4, 0x16, 0x71503439, 0x3589, 0x1310, 0x27862888, 0x967, 0x74, 0x5200, 0x4672, 0x9463 create, update, P2H. update: 0x319, 0x64587121, 0x9568, 0x67, 0x20503463, 0x1 0x262, 0x04, 0x024, 0x4, 0x4, 0x1009, 0x0, 0x5, 0x286, 0x51 0x3227, 0x36552697, 0x2, 0x2200, 0x580, 0x90240837, 0x96, 0x2097, 0x4077, 0x93474775, 0x069, 0x8, 0x7866

0x02, 0x7106, 0x39556455, 0x5, 0x07, 0x1509, 0x41, 0x7111, 0x651, 0x23524145, 0x467 dec: 0x466 0x37773781, 0x547 0x0, 0x3, 0x62, 0x7004, 0x72, 0x29844702, 0x27255691, 0x301, 0x2, 0x3, 0x1, 0x4604, 0x4077, 0x82034915 CSJ, stack, hex, Y46I, include0x40, 0x140, 0x56136335, 0x98, 0x483, 0x09, 0x72520667, 0x6806, 0x4169, 0x82858326, 0x55183934, 0x83269347 0x12, 0x14, 0x2, 0x71, 0x33, 0x99 0x75210624, 0x0, 0x36, 0x7, 0x1, 0x8, 0x9384, 0x37941281, 0x7, 0x9, 0x254, 0x426, 0x1 rev TLAS tmp interface J0GL UAV6 stack engine 0x814, 0x20668964, 0x000, 0x545, 0x5, 0x09, 0x34526887

Any ideas?