Today's first crapware kill is hpmsgsvc.exe, This is an HP program, not Micro$oft. Web searching returned a lot of hits, but few of the hits actually knew anything about hpmsgsvc. It's been around for a good while. Fair number of hits talked about troubles back in Windows 7, where hpmsgsvc would go crazy and hog all the available CPU time. The few knowledgeable hits say the hpmsgsvc is a kludge that lets you "hook" a program to a function key so that you can start that program for just touching one key. Why anyone would want to do that, it's an ancient DOS idea, is unclear. If I want to set a program for easy start, I just put its icon (a shortcut) on my desktop, and then the program will start with the click of the mouse.
Hpmsgsrv is NOT a regular Windows service, which means you cannot kill it off with the Administrative Tools Service manager. I killed it with Task Manager. The old three finger salute (control-alt-delete) still works to bring up task manager. Hpmsgsrv in in the process list only it tries to hide itself under the name hpservices. No matter. STOP shuts down the copy in RAM. Select the "Startup" tab in task manager and set hpservice to Disabled. Underneath hpservices is a second bit of crapware calling itself "Hp Smart Adapter". He is now gone too. Web searching tells me that HP Smart Adaptor was nagware that specialized in selling you genuine HP accessories. I don't need that either.
I will have to check tomorrow that the "disable" in task manager really works. If it fails and lets hpmsgsvc come back to life, I plan to go after it with regedit. According to web sources, a Run key in the registry starts hpmsgsrv. If necessary I will use the search function in regedit to locate and then zap a registry key that contains "run" and the program name (hpservices.com). This probably won't be necessary, task manager is supposed to have done all this, but just in case a new Micro$oft feature doesn't work, I have a backup plan.
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
Monday, January 4, 2016
The 11th Commandment
"Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican" Attributed to Ronald Reagan. Well with a dozen candidates going for the Republican nomination there is gonna be a few sharp elbows thrown. But, if you are gonna violate Reagan's 11th commandment, you oughta make it over something real.
Right now we got Republicans trashing other Republicans for missing votes in Congress. If you are running for president you gotta get your butt out of Washington and go meet voters out in the real world beyond the DC beltway. If you do that, you will miss some votes inside the Beltway. To criticize candidates for campaigning is pure BS. If you wanna trash somebody, find a real issue.
Right now we got Republicans trashing other Republicans for missing votes in Congress. If you are running for president you gotta get your butt out of Washington and go meet voters out in the real world beyond the DC beltway. If you do that, you will miss some votes inside the Beltway. To criticize candidates for campaigning is pure BS. If you wanna trash somebody, find a real issue.
Support your Friends, trash your enemies
Right. Saudi Arabia and Iran are in a tiff. The Saudis just broke off diplomatic relations with Iran. Saudi is a long time friend of the US, Iran is a long time enemy.
So what does Obama do? Does he back up the Saudis? No way, he calls for "restraint" on both sides.
Especially as Iran is a much stronger country than Saudi. All Saudi has going for it is oil, and the money it brings. Saudi has no industry to speak of, a minute population, their national territory is a desert, they have to import everything. Iran is right next door, the sea in between them is so small as to permit passage in a canoe.
The Iranians have ten or fifty times the population of Saudi and enough industry to build nukes. And plenty of oil.
And we expect middle east Arab countries to send troops to defeat ISIS when we won't even back up a long time friend like Saudi?
So what does Obama do? Does he back up the Saudis? No way, he calls for "restraint" on both sides.
Especially as Iran is a much stronger country than Saudi. All Saudi has going for it is oil, and the money it brings. Saudi has no industry to speak of, a minute population, their national territory is a desert, they have to import everything. Iran is right next door, the sea in between them is so small as to permit passage in a canoe.
The Iranians have ten or fifty times the population of Saudi and enough industry to build nukes. And plenty of oil.
And we expect middle east Arab countries to send troops to defeat ISIS when we won't even back up a long time friend like Saudi?
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Washing Windows 8 (again)
Today's Windows 8 crapware kill is a service called "Bonjour". Bonjour is an Apple invention for "hands off networking". Bonjour works by going on the local network and finding all the other computers, shared printers, and other useful stuff, and with such info it can then support programs that want to talk with other stuff on the network. All of these activity runs in parallel with the regular Microsoft networking support which has been there since Win98 and has gotten better over the years.
Itunes is the program that wants Bonjour support. I don't have an Ipad, so I don't run Itunes. There are a bunch of other Apple programs, none of which I had ever heard of, which Wikipedia lists as wanting Bonjour as well. I don't care about them and so adieu to Bonjour.
Bonjour being a service, is best killed using the Windows services tool. Get to "Control Panel". I have "Control Panel" as an icon on the desktop. Some long ago tweaking of "Personalizations" gave me that very useful desktop icon. If you don't have the icon, do the bang-the-mouse-on-the-righthand-screen-edge thing to bring up the Charms bar. Select the "Settings" charm. Inside "settings" select "control panel".
Once in Control panel select "Administrative Tools". Then select "Services". This shows every service in the machine and allows you to stop them, start them, and program Windows useage of the service. Services are programs that Windows loads into RAM at boot time, or upon demand. STOP means just shut down the copy in RAM. I usually STOP a service, just to make sure I have control. Then reprogram the "Startup type" to "manual" or "disabled". Manual means don't load and run the service until some program asks for that service. I set Bonjour to "manual" and it never started up, indicating that no program every requested the Bonjour service. "Disabled" means never load and run the service no matter how hard programs beg and plead for the service.
With Bonjour service turned off, I could still access my desktop from the laptop and transfer fines back and forth. Home networking runs just fine without Bonjour, the regular Microsoft networking carrying the freight.
Itunes is the program that wants Bonjour support. I don't have an Ipad, so I don't run Itunes. There are a bunch of other Apple programs, none of which I had ever heard of, which Wikipedia lists as wanting Bonjour as well. I don't care about them and so adieu to Bonjour.
Bonjour being a service, is best killed using the Windows services tool. Get to "Control Panel". I have "Control Panel" as an icon on the desktop. Some long ago tweaking of "Personalizations" gave me that very useful desktop icon. If you don't have the icon, do the bang-the-mouse-on-the-righthand-screen-edge thing to bring up the Charms bar. Select the "Settings" charm. Inside "settings" select "control panel".
Once in Control panel select "Administrative Tools". Then select "Services". This shows every service in the machine and allows you to stop them, start them, and program Windows useage of the service. Services are programs that Windows loads into RAM at boot time, or upon demand. STOP means just shut down the copy in RAM. I usually STOP a service, just to make sure I have control. Then reprogram the "Startup type" to "manual" or "disabled". Manual means don't load and run the service until some program asks for that service. I set Bonjour to "manual" and it never started up, indicating that no program every requested the Bonjour service. "Disabled" means never load and run the service no matter how hard programs beg and plead for the service.
With Bonjour service turned off, I could still access my desktop from the laptop and transfer fines back and forth. Home networking runs just fine without Bonjour, the regular Microsoft networking carrying the freight.
Secrets of being a Superpower: Immigration
Having a large population is one secret. At 300 and some million, the United States population is larger than all but maybe China and India. And we have a very high grade and valuable population. Americans are loyal to America, to democracy, to the rule of law, to liberty. They all speak, read, and write English. Most have graduated high school, and many have made it thru college. For instance US Army recruits can read and write, drive a motor vehicle, change its oil and tires, work a telephone, and many other skills. I bet the Chinese and Indian armies are not so blessed.
It was the great 19th century surge of US immigration that built our population to its current level. Without that vast in pouring of people, we would be about where Canada is today. Canada is a worthy country and all, but with a population of only 30 million they just don't count for as much as we do with a 300 million population.
To maintain our position in the world we need to keep our population up. We can admit one million immigrants a year, into our population of 300 million and turn them into Americans, loyal productive citizens who add to the wealth and strength of America. We have plenty of people to choose from, everyone in the world wants to come to America, where the streets are paved with gold. We ought to pick the best, the young, the educated, the able bodied, and those who have demonstrated loyalty to America by serving as translators or who enlisted in the US armed forces.
While we are at it, we ought to do something about the 10-11 million illegals already in the country. I don't have the heart to deport them all. It would look too much like the Nazi's loading Jews into cattle cars for the trip to Auschwitz. I think any who are gainfully employed, have stayed out of trouble with the law, are raising children ought to be given papers making 'em legal to be in the country and hold a job. And after a few years, let them jump thru a few more hoops and grant them citizenship.
It's a hostile world out there, and we need more American citizens to confront it.
It was the great 19th century surge of US immigration that built our population to its current level. Without that vast in pouring of people, we would be about where Canada is today. Canada is a worthy country and all, but with a population of only 30 million they just don't count for as much as we do with a 300 million population.
To maintain our position in the world we need to keep our population up. We can admit one million immigrants a year, into our population of 300 million and turn them into Americans, loyal productive citizens who add to the wealth and strength of America. We have plenty of people to choose from, everyone in the world wants to come to America, where the streets are paved with gold. We ought to pick the best, the young, the educated, the able bodied, and those who have demonstrated loyalty to America by serving as translators or who enlisted in the US armed forces.
While we are at it, we ought to do something about the 10-11 million illegals already in the country. I don't have the heart to deport them all. It would look too much like the Nazi's loading Jews into cattle cars for the trip to Auschwitz. I think any who are gainfully employed, have stayed out of trouble with the law, are raising children ought to be given papers making 'em legal to be in the country and hold a job. And after a few years, let them jump thru a few more hoops and grant them citizenship.
It's a hostile world out there, and we need more American citizens to confront it.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Is this Right? Wall St Journal new year's predictions
Let's see here. WSJ makes twelve predictions. Number 2 is "The Fall if Islamic State" by Walther Russell Mead, who ought to know better. Walther thinks that IS has antagonized the French, the Russians, the Merkins, and scared the bejesus out of the surviving Sunni Arab regimes left in the middle east, and thus it will get crushed. Maybe. But an ideology so strong as to pull European teenagers to fly to Turkey and hike across the border into Syria to carry an AK47 for IS is going to be hard to stop.
"A Grand Bargain on Energy" Jeffry Sachs (Columbia University Earth Institute) thinks there is a role for wind and solar energy. He does not explain how wind and solar keep my lights burning after the sun goes down on a windless day. If my juice goes off, my oil burner stops working and my pipes freeze.
"Bookstores are Back" by Ann Patchett, owner of a startup bookstore. I wish her a lotta luck. Up here our beloved Village Bookstore, after 20 years of operation, went out of business, and it being revived on a much smaller scale. Between the price competition from the Walmarts of the world, E-books, and the ridiculous price of hardbacks, bookstores have a tough row to hoe.
"Cooperation with China" by Orville Schell, outlines the well know tension spots between the US and China and is so pleased to find that the Chinese and Americans can agree about "Climate Change". How groovy. Not a word about US-Chinese trade, the largest trade relationship in the world. You would think having most of your economy connected to trade with the US might just possibly create a few common interests. Mr. Schell does'nt mention this at all,
Ah well, four out of twelve duds ain't too bad. Betcha the NYT did worse.
"A Grand Bargain on Energy" Jeffry Sachs (Columbia University Earth Institute) thinks there is a role for wind and solar energy. He does not explain how wind and solar keep my lights burning after the sun goes down on a windless day. If my juice goes off, my oil burner stops working and my pipes freeze.
"Bookstores are Back" by Ann Patchett, owner of a startup bookstore. I wish her a lotta luck. Up here our beloved Village Bookstore, after 20 years of operation, went out of business, and it being revived on a much smaller scale. Between the price competition from the Walmarts of the world, E-books, and the ridiculous price of hardbacks, bookstores have a tough row to hoe.
"Cooperation with China" by Orville Schell, outlines the well know tension spots between the US and China and is so pleased to find that the Chinese and Americans can agree about "Climate Change". How groovy. Not a word about US-Chinese trade, the largest trade relationship in the world. You would think having most of your economy connected to trade with the US might just possibly create a few common interests. Mr. Schell does'nt mention this at all,
Ah well, four out of twelve duds ain't too bad. Betcha the NYT did worse.
Cannon Mountain Ski Weather
Well, we got a half inch of snow yesterday. Not much, but better than nothing, better than rain. It's cold enough for snow making, just barely. It's 30F right now. Snow is forecast for tomorrow.
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