QA Tech-Tips

Friday, September 6, 2013

Migrating Outlook's User Settings
How to move your settings from one computer to another

In a previous article, I wrote about how to migrate Outlook's mail files from Windows XP to Windows 7, and it has been one of the most popular articles I've written based on web traffic. The most common question that this article spawned was, (something like), "OK, Einstein, I've moved all my files; now how do I go about moving my settings as well?!"

This is a perfectly legitimate question since, if you've had Outlook set up for longer than fifteen minutes, it's a lead-pipe cinch that you've developed a rather complicated set of settings, rules, accounts, and such-like over the years. And one of the biggest hurdles to migrating your e-mail from one system to another is not so much migrating the e-mail, (that is, your mail files and such), but recreating all the customizations, tweaks, changes, and such that make your installation of Outlook uniquely yours. Not to mention having to remember all the settings, passwords, security configurations, (etc. . .), for each and every e-mail account that you've associated with Outlook.

This article seeks to address that issue by showing you how to move not only your mail files, but all your customizations, rules, and settings as well.

Unfortunately, this article is Looooong. . . .

It's not that difficult to do, and it really doesn't take as long as you might think from reading this article. It's just not something that can be told in three or four steps.

Be patient, read through it two or three times, grit your teeth, and push onward!

Caveats:

This article assumes that you are using Outlook for local e-mail storage. (i.e. your mail files are stored locally on your system, you connect to your ISP's mail server using POP-SMTP, (or maybe even IMAP, though I have not tried it), and not as part of an Exchange Server system on a domain, etc. If your mail is stored on an external/corporate mail system this may not work. You can try it, and if it does work, please let us know!
My system is a Windows 7 - 64 bit system; though this should work on the 32 bit version of Windows 7, as well as both 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista. If anyone tries this on Windows 8 - 32 or 64 bit, please post a comment and let me know if it works there too.
I have not tried this migrating between 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows - in either direction. Because certain important metadata information about your e-mail setup is located in the Registry, and because I do not know if there are any differences between them on 64 or 32 bit systems, Your Mileage will most certainly Vary.
My system is a Win-7 / Vista generation system. Since I do not currently have a working installation of Outlook on anything older than that - like XP - I cannot say if this will work or not. However, knowing how Microsoft does things, and how their Registry is organized, I wold not be surprised if this works there too. Again, if you try this on XP, please post and let me know if it works there or not.

Also note that the locations of the various mail-files and such are different when migrating from XP to Vista/Win7/Win8. Pleas see my previous article for information on where the files are located on XP, and how to migrate these files from XP to something later. You should also be aware that these differences in file locations will, very likely, affect the Registry settings for Outlook too. Beware.

My version of Outlook is the Outlook 2010 version, however this should work on versions from 2007 onward. It might work with Outlook 2003, and I have not tested it with Outlook 2012, though it would not surprise me if it works there too.
My version of Outlook is the 32 bit version of Outlook 2010, since at the time I installed it Microsoft was recommending everyone install the 32 bit version unless you had a very specific need for the 64 bit variety of Outlook.
I am also assuming that your mail files are located in the standard locations where Outlook normally installs them. If you've moved your mail-files around, you'll have to substitute your unique paths and places when I tell you to either copy or paste the various folders.
You will be "mucking around" with your Registry, and if you're not careful, you can mangle a system in short-order. However, most of the things here are relatively benign, and if you follow the steps carefully, you should have no problems. Of course, Your Mileage May Vary, and if you bork your system. . . . Well you should have made backups first!

Here's how to do it.

Setup, prior to migration between the two systems:

First things first: Perform a full system backup, preferably a "bare metal" backup if at all possible, before doing anything else. These steps are fairly easy and the majority of Windows users should have no problems. However, good 'ole Mr. Murphy likes nothing better than to catch someone - no matter how experienced - with his pants down. Mistakes happen, so don't forget the backup!
Make sure that the account username is identical on both the original system and the target system. Likewise, make sure that both of the accounts are elevated to "Administrator" access. If you want to down-grade the account(s) to "Standard User" access, that can be done once everything is proven and working.

You can move between systems where the username is not the same, but you will loose a lot of the metadata and rule relationships simply because the paths to the various files are different.

In one case, I tried moving from a system where the username was "Jim" to one where the username was "Jim Harris", and because the user path isn't the same, things get interesting. In my case I ended up having to re-sync a number of my rules because the target folder of the rule changed due to the path change. Likewise, although all the account information came over, the passwords for the accounts were lost and I needed to re-enter them again.

Prepare the target system by installing the same version of Outlook as is on the original system before you migrate. Microsoft likes to make, (ahem!), "little tweaks here and there" between the differing versions of Outlook. If you don't believe me, go look at another article I've written on just that very subject. Verify that Outlook on the target system is fully installed and ready to have e-mail accounts set up. Don't set the accounts up just yet, just make sure that Outlook is at the point where accounts can be set up.
Make sure Outlook is not running on either of the two systems - both source and target.. In fact, while you're doing this, you'll probably want to either unplug the network cable, or turn Wireless networking off, (or both.), on both systems. The reason for this is that:

If the first system downloads e-mails while you're migrating to the second system, your two systems are now "out of sync", and you'll have to repeat much of this to re-sync them.
If Outlook is running on either system, you may not be able to copy, or instal, the necessary files and settings. And even if you do, you can't guarantee that they'll work right.

With networking / Wireless turned off on both systems, do what I call a "Frosty Cold Reboot". That is, do a full shutdown to the power-off state on both systems, count to five slowly, and then restart both systems, making sure that networking is still disabled and Outlook is not running.

Most of the things you'll be doing require full administrative rights on the system. If the account you're migrating from/to is just a "standard" account, you should, (temporarily), elevate it to an "Administrator" account while the migration is in progress.

Saving your mail-files:

This is where you'll backup all your important e-mail files.

Prepare a thumb-drive, (USB stick, flash drive, or whatever you want to call it), that is big enough to hold all your mail-files with about a gig or two left over.
Place the thumb-drive in your original system, and create three folders:

In the root of the thumb-drive, create a folder called "Outlook"
Inside the Outlook folder you just created, create two new folders called "Local" and "Roaming".

Make sure that Outlook is not running, (or shut it down if it is), then make the following file copies between your original system and the thumb-drive:
Go to the "C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft" folder.

If you cannot see the hidden "AppData" folder from within your home directory, you'll have to open the "folder options" dialog and - under "Hidden Files and Folders", select the radio-button next to "Show hidden files, folders, and drives".
Likewise - from inside the same dialog - you'll have to un-check "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)" Windows will complain bitterly about this, but go ahead and do it anyway. (You may want to go and set these two settings back to the way they were when you're finished migrating.)

Within the Microsoft folder, pick up and copy the entire "Outlook" folder to the \Outlook\Local folder on your thumb drive. Since this contains your mail files, as well as certain special indexing and metadata files, this might take a while. Note that the Outlook directory on my own system weighs in at just under two gigs. It's been around a while, but I've also done the periodic garbage collection - throwing out ancient and useless e-mails - as well as compacting folders to keep the amount of cruft and junk to a minimum.
Next, go to your "C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft" folder and copy the following folders to the \Outlook\Roaming folder on your thumb-drive:

The "Outlook" folder
Both the "Proof" and "UProof" folders.
Both the "Signatures" and "Stationary" folders.

Saving your e-mail settings:

This is where you backup all the "hidden" settings and passwords from the Registry.

First: Open an elevated (Administrator), command prompt. This is important since Windows versions starting with Vista onward, "virtualize" important parts of the system. You need to be working with the real Registry, not some "virtual" copy of it.
If you've never done this before, here's how:

Click on the "Start" button and go to "All Programs" and then "Accessories".
Within the "Accessories" section, you'll see a black box icon named "Command Prompt" about three or four icons down from the top.
Right Click on the "Command Prompt" icon, and select "Run as Administrator" from the pop-up sub-menu that appears.
Click on "Yes" if a UAC prompt asks you for permission.
You should now see a "DOS" type command prompt window that has as it's title "Administrator: Command Prompt". This is very important! Verify that you have the correct command prompt window open before you proceed!

Within the elevated command prompt window, type "regedit". Once you do this, you'll see the standard Windows Registry Editor window appear.

Navigate to the following location within the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles.
(Whew! What a mouthful that was!!) Let's try that again, easier this time.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Software
Microsoft
Windows NT
CurrentVersion
Windows Messaging Subsystem
Profiles

When you expand the "Profiles" key, (by clicking on the small triangle), one of the sub-keys you should see is one named "Outlook". (On my system, "Outlook" is the only sub-key there. Your system may have others too.) This is the Registry key you're interested in, and this is the Registry key where all the magic is located. In the next few steps, you're going to make a copy of all the data in this key and save it on your thumb-drive so that you can move it to your new system.
Click on the "Outlook" sub-key so that it is highlighted, right click on it to expand the pop-up sub-menu, and then select "Export"
When you do that, you'll see a dialog box titled "Export Registry File"

Select the \Outlook folder on your thumb-drive as the location for the exported file.
Give the export file a useful name. Something like "Outlook Settings Export 06-21-2013.reg" is a good choice.
Make sure the "Save as type" is set to "Registration Files (*.reg)" - which is the default setting.
Make sure that the "Export range" is set to "Selected branch".
Click on "Save", wait a nanosecond or so, and the magic is done! You now have a perfectly preserved copy of all those mysterious settings in Outlook.

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Danger!

All of the previous steps assume that you have not opened Outlook since you started this process. Opening Outlook, (especially if you've received any e-mails between the time you copied the mail-files from ...\AppData\Local and now), will write various changes into many files on the system - especially within the "Outlook" sub-key in the Registry.

This actually surprised me as I had previously "assumed" ( ! ! ! ) that the Registry settings only contained account, setup, password, (and possibly), path information about your e-mail. When I re-exported my Outlook registry key today, (just to make sure I was using the correct sequence of steps in this article), I tried comparing it to another Outlook registry key export I did a week ago, "just for grins and giggles" - and damn if they weren't different!

Admittedly, the differences were (usually) relatively small in nature with only a few bytes different here and there; but any differences make me nervous. Especially since I don't know what those "few bytes here and there" might represent. And, AFAIK, the only differences between then and now is that I have received a fair amount of e-mail since I did the original Registry settings export.

If you have opened Outlook, it is very likely that your mail-files, metadata, and Registry have become unsynchronized. If you try to restore the files you copied earlier, along with the Registry settings that you've just now exported, the results may be, (ahem!), "interesting". To avoid this, you'll have to make sure Outlook is not running, then go back to the beginning and start re-copying all the files and settings all over again. Bummer. . . .

The last step in exporting everything from your "old" version of Outlook is to export all your rules.

I know that I have been screaming up-and-down about not opening Outlook, but this time you gotta do it, since (again, AFAIK), the only way to access these rules is via Outlook itself.

Now hold on! Before you get all eager and go starting up Outlook, you still have to make sure your e-mail sessions don't get outta whack. To do that, you need to make sure that Outlook can't get to the Internet, and the best way to do that is to disconnect from any and all network sources; either hard-wired Ethernet, or via WiFi.

Once you're absolutely and totally disconnected from ANY network source whatsoever, you can go ahead, start up Outlook, and export all your finely crafted rules.

Here's how to do it:

Start Outlook and go to your usual mail-view page where you read and send e-mails.
Once you've gotten your e-mail open, up on the "ribbon" near the right side, is an icon that looks like a folder, labeled "Rules".
Click on the little triangle under it to expose the drop-down menu, and select "Manage Rules & Alerts".
You should now see the "Rules & Alerts" dialog with the "E-mail Rules" tab selected, showing (the top of) all the rules you've defined.
On the top right-hand side, select "Options", it will open another dialog titled "Options", and within the top half of the dialog you'll see two buttons labeled "Export Rules" and "Import Rules". Obviously, what you want to select is "Export Rules".
When you click on the "Export Rules" button, you get the usual Windows "Save" dialog which defaults to the "C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook" folder. You don't want to save it there, you want to place it on your thumb-drive with everything else, so go find the thumb-drive on the left hand, ("places"), pane, and select the Outlook folder you created there earlier.
Give the exported rule file, (*.rwz), a useful name like "08_20_2013_rules_export.rwz", and save it to the thumb-drive.
Click "OK" on each of the dialog boxes to get back to Outlook's e-mail page, and then close Outlook.

At this point, you can do a complete shut-down on your system and remove the thumb-drive.

Now that you have all the data and metadata from the old system saved all snug and warm on your trusty thumb drive, you can set the old system aside, and bring the new system to center-stage.

At this point, you're going to move all of the carefully preserved data from the old Outlook installation into the new Outlook installation; making it, (hopefully!), an exact clone of the original Outlook install.

How to do it:

Setup prior to restoring the Outlook data:

First, make sure the new system has no active network connections whatsoever. Unplug the network cable and/or turn off wireless networking on the new system. This will prevent Outlook from trying to do things to you behind your back.
Make sure that the user on the new machine has the exact same name as the user on the old machine.
Launch Outlook, and verify that there are no accounts set up, but that it is ready to create new accounts. Then close Outlook.

Restore the saved Outlook mail-files and metadata:

Attach the thumb-drive (where you saved the data) to the new system, and navigate to the Outlook folder you created earlier.
Navigate to the \Outlook\Local folder on the thumb drive, and copy the "Outlook" folder you saved there to the "C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft" folder on the new machine.

Windows may complain that there is already a folder with that name, and it may also complain that there are files there with the same names.
Allow Windows to "merge" the folders, and if there are any complaints about files being the same name, select the top option - copy the new file and replace the old one with it - since you want to totally erase whatever is there and replace it with what was brought over from the old system.

Next, navigate to the \Outlook\Roaming folder on the thumb-drive, and copy everything there into the "C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft" folder on the new system. This should include:

The "Outlook" folder
The "Proof" and UProof" folders
And the "Signatures" and "Stationary" folders
If Windows complains about files or folders being the same, let Windows copy and/or merge as you did before.

On the thumb-drive, move up to the "Outlook" folder and find the saved registry file, (it will have an icon that looks like a Rubik's Cube with pieces missing), and double-click it.

You will (probably) get a UAC asking you for permission to update the system. Answer "Yes".
You will then see a "Registry Editor" dialog warning you that adding or modifying values in the Registry can do serious damage to your system. It will also ask you if you trust the source of the file you created just a few minutes ago, (of course you do!), so go ahead and let it install.

Sanity Check:

Before you do anything else, you should stop and make sure that things are going OK so far. To accomplish this, launch Outlook. What you should see when Outlook finishes launching itself, is that Outlook on the new machine looks exactly like the way Outlook looked on the old machine.

All your mail folders should be there and they should contain exactly what was in them before you began the migration.
The e-mail messages that were on the old system should be on the new system.
"Unread" messages on the old system should exist, and be "Unread" on the new one.
Likewise any garbage that was left in the "Junk" and "Deleted Items" folders on the old system should still be there on the new one.

In other words, what you see now, on the new system, should be exactly the same as what you saw on the old system before you shut Outlook down for the last time.

If they don't - STOP! - go back and verify that you've done things properly.

Verify that you copied the folders from the thumb-drive into the correct folders on the new machine.

Did you place the "Outlook" folder that was inside the \Outlook\Local\ folder on the thumb-drive inside the ...\AppData\Local\Microsoft\ folder on the new machine?
Did you place the five folders that you copied to the \Outlook\Roaming\ folder on the thumb-drive inside the ...\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\ folder on the new machine?

Were you able to successfully import the Registry file you saved before?
Did you restore your Outlook settings to the exact same username on both systems?
Have you tried a system reboot?

It is important that you go back and resolve any issues now, before you continue.

Now that you're golden so far, let's do the last few tweaks to get Outlook running on the new machine.

Restore the saved rule file:

With Outlook still running and open to your e-mail, go back to the "Rules" icon on the ribbon.
Click on the small triangle under the "Rules" icon and select "Manage Rules & Alerts", "Options", and then "Import Rules".
Find the exported rule file, (*.rwz), that you saved in the Outlook folder on your thumb drive, select it and click "Open"
If all goes well, nothing will appear to happen when you import the rules file. Select "OK" on all the dialogs to bring yourself back to Outlook's e-mail page. You can verify that all is well by re-opening the "Manage Rules & Alerts" dialog to verify that all your rules were successfully imported.

Verify and Test the account settings:
Before you just "let Outlook go", you need to verify that the accounts, passwords, (etc.), are set up correctly.
Likewise, you should make a small settings change that will allow you to go back to your old system if something goes wrong.

With Outlook still running, and open to your e-mail, select the "File" tab on the far left side of the ribbon.
Within the "File" tab, select "Account Settings". This brings up a, (in my opinion), totally stupid and useless button that is - in essence - identical to the one you just selected. Go ahead and select that one too. (What where they thinking?)
You should, (finally!), be at the "Account Settings" dialog. Verify that each account that existed on your original machine is here on the new one.

If you do NOT see all your accounts, STOP! Close Outlook and repeat the steps for restoring the Outlook registry file.
If that does not fix the problem, go to your thumb-drive and open the Registry file with Notepad. You should see a lot of strange looking stuff that looks something like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook]

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook\05035e0babc255def9547eba6a273a93d]
"001f3006"=hex:4d,00,ff,00,ff,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,21,00,41,00,64,00,64,00,72,\
00,65,00,73,00,73,00,20,00,42,00,6f,00,6f,00,6b,00,22,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,\
76,00,69,00,64,00,65,00,72,00,90,00
"001f300a"=hex:6f,00,dd,00,77,00,88,00,70,00,2b,00,64,00,61,00,6c,00,00,00 (etc. . .)

and a lot more just like it. The file should be fairly big, mine is just a tad over 350k in size; but then again I have two different e-mail accounts, and some weird security settings for parts of them too. Depending on how many e-mail accounts you have, and their settings, your file may be a bit larger, or smaller, than mine. However it shouldn't be tiny, and it shouldn't be filled with unprintable garbage that looks like cartoon curse-words.
If you don't see text like I have shown above, or if it starts with something other than

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles]
or
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\Outlook]

you should close Outlook, shut down the new machine, go back to the old machine, and re-do the steps for exporting Outlook's Registry profile.

Highlight your account, (or each account in turn if you have more than one), and then click on the "Change. . . ." item just above the account list.
Look at the first settings page, and verify that it looks like it should. Then clear the "Test account settings by clicking the 'Next' button" check-box. (You do this so Outlook doesn't try something stupid when you move from screen to screen. Ask me how I know. Go ahead, I dare you!)
Click on the "More Settings" button and click on each tab in turn, from "General" to "Advanced", and verify that the information on each tab is correct.
Once you get to the "Advanced" tab, look about 2/3 of the way down and select the "Leave Messages on Server" check-box. This is the important "small settings change" I mentioned before. By setting this, Outlook won't delete messages from your mail server when it reads them. This is important because if things don't go right, you can always go back to your old machine and all your messages will be there. (However, any replies you may have sent while on the new machine, won't be.)
Repeat these steps for each additional account you have, verify that all the information is correct, and make sure to select "Leave Messages on Server" for each account in turn.

Now, let's fire that puppy up and see if it really works!

At this point you've checked just about everything that can be checked without "going live" with Outlook.

Shut down Outlook.
Re-attach the Ethernet cable, or turn Wireless Networking back on, and wait for the connection to happen.
Verify a good network connection by launching your web browser and verify that you can go to various web pages.
Restart Outlook.
When Outlook restarts, (God willin' an' the Creek Don't Rise), you should receive any outstanding e-mails that have been queued on your various mail servers.

If you get errors, resolve them the way you normally would, though I'd be really surprised if you get anything significant at this point. Maybe a rule error or two, but nothing serious.

You should go to each of your accounts, in turn, and send a test message back to that account, along with one to every other account you have.

You should receive all the test messages from each and every account.
If you don't, go visit that account via it's web portal, (if it has one), and use normal troubleshooting techniques to discover what's happening. In my case, my Yahoo! account periodically goes brain-dead for no apparent reason when I try to download e-mail from it. No real reason that I can see, it just doesn't like POP mail sometimes.

If you can, call a friend or two and ask them to send you a test-e-mail. Or, be bold and send them a test e-mail asking them to reply!

By now, you should know if your e-mail migration has succeeded or not, and if you've gotten this far, it's a pretty fair bet that you're doing just swimmingly. Give it a few days, maybe a week or so, and if all goes well you can go back to each account's "Advanced" settings tab and un-check the "Leave Messages on Server" check-box to clear the cruft off of your mail server(s).

Drop me a line and let me know how things went!

Jim (JR)

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

A Cute Gadget
The iGo "Green" Computer Power Adapter

In a previous blog article I mentioned that, when thinking about this article, the thought path took me to thinking about garage sales, (also known as "yard sales"), which lead me to thinking about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, a weird association if I ever saw one.

As I promised, I began writing how I made that association. At second glance I noticed that I was taking up too much space in the article discussing something totally irrelevant - so I deleted it.

However, the bottom line is that it is possible to score very interesting and useful stuff at garage sales for practically nothing.

And so it is here. I found the iGo "Green" AC power adapter at a garage sale, being sold by someone who had no idea what it was. Ergo, I was able to buy it for one dollar. (MSRP is $80.) Of course, it was missing a power cord and had no instructions, but I have plenty of power cords and a computer power adapter isn't that hard to figure out. (And I can get the instructions on-line at iGo's web site, if I really want them.) And, more luck, it had the right adapter plug to fit my laptop!

So, what makes the iGo"Green" adapter such a cute gadget? It's a whole new take on the standard laptop AC adapter, designed to save power.

A "normal" (as supplied by the manufacturer), laptop AC adapter is usually a standard switching power supply converting the normal AC "mains" voltage, (either 110 or 220 volts, depending on locality), to the DC charging voltage required by the laptop, and includes a plug guaranteed to fit.

"Da' Bitch Part", so to speak, is that these switching supplies can consume non-trivial amounts of power from the wall mains even when the laptop is fully charged. (A good test of this is to touch the adapter and note how warm it is when your laptop has been turned off for a while.) Likewise, the ever-fussy folks in California, as well as in the European Union, consider this "wasted" power a Scourge to Mankind.

The iGo "Green" adapter claims to eliminate much, if not all, of this wasted residual power by detecting the power consumed by the device it is supplying power to. Theoretically, laptop power draw through it's charging port drops dramatically once the batteries are charged. So, by detecting the amount of power the laptop wants to consume - and by allowing the laptop to spend at least some of it's time on battery power - it claims to reduce wasteful standby power by up to 80%.

Well, I don't happen to have a laboratory-grade micro-wattmeter in my back-pocket, so I cannot give you my own measurements on the actual, real-world, "where the rubber meets the road" consumption, (or lack thereof), of this device when connected to my laptop. What I can tell you is what I have observed while using the device.

The Good:

It is a "universal power" device and can be used on both 110 and 220 volt mains. However since this is, essentially, universally true for device supplies in general, and computer power adapters in particular, this is not exactly the strongest selling point the device has to offer.
It checks the power demand of your device every fifteen minutes, and if it's not demanding power, the charger switches to its "Green mode", and stops supplying power to the device.
Once the charger notices that your device has an increased power demand, it switches back to full-power mode.
Theoretically, this will save bucket-loads of energy by reducing residual power waste.

The Bad:

The device will - if it decides that you don't need it running - turn itself completely off. This can happen, (and has happened to me), when you turn your laptop off for the night. Translation: When you power up the laptop in the morning, you're running sans adapter, even though it is plugged in.
I have noticed that it, sometimes, does not exit its "Green mode" when it is supposed to, leaving the laptop running on its batteries. This is especially obvious if the laptop is turned off, the adapter switches to "Green" mode, and then the laptop is turned back on again. You can mitigate this by pressing the green "power" button on the device, but that assumes you're checking the device to see if it's running in full-power mode.
Likewise, the device does not return to it's last running state if power is interrupted and then restored. If I turn off a power strip briefly to reset a network device connected to it, the iGo adapter remains off. A standard adapter continues to supply power when mains power is restored.
On all of the more modern, (say within the last five to ten years), laptops I have purchased, the power adapter is as cool as a cucumber when the laptop is off. Which, IMHO, takes much of the wind out of the iGo adapter's sails since that implies that the amount of wasted residual power is minimal.

The Ugly:

Depending on your laptop's power settings, suddenly entering "battery powered" mode may cause a significant drop in performance. (Not to mention that your laptop screen may suddenly become unreadable when it switches to it's low-brightness mode.) Note that this effect can be eliminated by changing your device's power-profile to a more piggy, (power-hungry), setting. Which, IMHO, is counter-productive if you are trying to save power.
By making the power profile changes noted above, your laptop's battery life will likely go right into the toilet when not connected to the adapter. That is unless you are thoughtful enough to re-switch your power profile back to a more power-friendly setting.
If unused for a period of time, it shuts itself entirely off. Ergo, when you fire up that trusty 'ole laptop in the morning, you may suddenly discover your machine is NOT running on adapter power at all. I have discovered this by turning on the laptop, expecting it to be on adapter power because the adapter is both plugged in - and plugged into the laptop - walk away from it for a bit, and come back to a hibernating computer. That, in and of itself, is not entirely bad. However, some software, (including some of Windows' own stuff), does not recover from hibernation gracefully. (Translation: Your machine may begin doing strange things, depending on what you're doing with it.) I have learned not to trust hibernation - or standby - completely and it annoys me no end when a computer goes into hibernation when I don't expect it to.
This means you have to be much more vigilent about what power mode the adapter is in. Am I in "Green" mode? Am I in the normal full-power mode? Has it shut itself off completely?
You also have to be much more aware of your computer's power profile settings and adjust them as necessary to avoid undesired behavior when in battery power.

The bottom line:

If you are willing to make the effort to be aware of, and regulate, both the adapter's and the computer's power settings, this can be a useful tool.

If you want to impress your friends with your "Ecological Awareness" with the newest Eco-Gadget, this is it.

If you want to keep your laptop set to sane and useful power settings, you can do a great job of eliminating wasted standby power just by turning off the power-strip the laptop is plugged into. And you can do that for free.

What say ye?

Jim (J.R.)

Sunday, July 28, 2013

The Uncertainty Principle
(as it applies to QA)

In 1927 Dr. Werner Heisenberg first wrote of what has become known as his "Uncertainty Principle". Though a thorough understanding of this principle involves boatloads of mathematics and quantum physics, it can be expressed, (in a very simplified form), like this:

It is not possible to know both where a particle is, and what the particle is doing at the same time.

This had profound implications for particle physics back in the 1920's when it was first stated, and it is still very much a part of atomic physics today. In fact, there are certain properties of very interesting things - superconductors, for example - that cannot be expressed or discovered without using the Uncertainty Principle.

The idea for this article came while I was thinking about writing another article. The thought path for that article lead me to "garage sales", and from there to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. How thinking about garage sales lead me to quantum physics is a whole 'nother story, but when I got thinking about it, it struck me as something very interesting to write about.

Now what the heck does Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle have to do with QA? Plenty.

In QA, especially software QA, we often forget that the observer and the observed interact, and that interaction can lead to results that may not be true in real life. A classic example of this is the "I haven't found any bugs, (yet), so it must be ready for release" concept found so often as a project deadline approaches. In this case, the seeming lack of defects has given the "observer", (the software tester), a potentially unreasonable confidence in the "observed", (the software product), setting the stage for a possible disaster come release time.

What should be happening is for the tester to seriously examine how applicable the test methodology might be to the object being tested. Are assumptions being made that may not really be valid in the real world? Are we testing deeply enough? Have we tested enough program paths to really have that level of confidence?

In a manual test scenario, there are a whole host of ways the observer and observed can interact, and I am sure you can think of ten or twenty yourself.

What about automated testing?

Automated testing is probably the best example of observer and observed interacting to their detriment that can be found in so-called "black box" testing. And it's not just the automated test software interacting that's the problem.

Of course, when you introduce an automated test tool into the program's logic flow, you have altered that flow - even if only infinitesimally. When you add up enough "infinitesimally's", you have a serious impact.

What about the speed of the test, or of the test's input? Automated tests can insert themselves into the program's messaging queue, and supply user input via trapping that queue and inserting messages into it. The result is that input is provided virtually instantly, something a normal user cannot do. In the real world, you have a user supplying a phone number for example. Instead of xxx-xxx-xxxx appearing instantly, maybe the user types in the area-code, (xxx), and then stops. Oh! I forgot! Let me go look it up. . . There may be a five or ten minute delay - or longer if he gets distracted by his wife wanting something done. What happens then? Is the test trapping output the same way? Natch'. Video? Video always works, right? Via automated testing we have no way to tell if the program's output visuals are corrupted, off-center, or unreadable.

In this case the interaction between the observer and the observed is woefully incomplete, yet the fact that "Automated Testing" passed with a clear bill of health may also lend itself to a false sense of confidence.

The canonical example of the Uncertainty Principle is White Box testing - or even "Grey Box" testing, where the "observer" has to deliberately insert instrumentation code into the product, or a similar kind of invasive testing. Oh, but valid QA requires a good "black-box" test after the white box testing is complete, right? And if I had a nickle for every software product that was released based on the results of the White Box test. . . Um, we probably shouldn't go there.

The bottom line is this: Any QA test plan should account for the interaction between the observer and the object being observed.

What say ye?

Jim (J.R.)

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Hot Smokin' Weapon! Award for April, 2013
GIGANEWS!

Greetings!

Today, I proudly announce yet another of my - somewhat - famous and world renowned Hot Smokin' Weapon! awards - and this award goes to my Usenet provider, Giganews.

The various criteria for my Hot Smokin' Weapon! award are somewhat subjective. However, since it's MY award, obviously I get to choose the criteria, right? (Laughing!)

Seriously, an award like this has to have rather flexible criteria, since it can encompass a wide variety of people, places, and things, depending on what strikes my fancy at a particular point in time.

However, the basics are something like this:

Do they deliver, as promised, 100% NO BULLSHIT?
In the extremely unlikely event that "Shit DOES Happen," do they promptly step up, take ownership, and make it right, right away?
Do they make product quality and customer satisfaction their highest priority?
Is this something I can unashamedly recommend to whomever might be interested?
Do they make "uncommon valor a common virtue" by going above and beyond the call of duty to meet the customer's needs?
Do they do this at a price that mere mortals like you and I can afford? And despite that, do they make us feel like we're big-shots like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates?

In this particular case, Giganews meets, and exceeds, these exacting criteria, and I can honor them with my (semi) Coveted Hot Smokin' Weapon! Award with absolutely no reservation whatsoever.

So, who is Giganews anyway?

In short, Giganews is my Usenet provider. And they have been my Usenet provider for a number of years.

Of course, calling Giganews "my Usenet provider" is like saying that The United States of America is "my nationality." It may not seem like much on the surface, but there's a lot more under the hood than meets the eye.

Giganews IS my Usenet provider, and at that task they do an excellent job. With article and download retention periods exceeding a thousand days, (right now, their web-site says the retention is at 1700+ days and climbing), and network speeds that make National Internet Backbones jealous, they are THE Usenet provider par excellence.

Now don't quote me on this, and I don't know this for a fact, but I would NOT be surprised to discover that Giganews provides the "National Internet Backbone" for the places they serve, their speeds are that awesome.

One thing you CAN quote me on is something a Giganews support person told me years ago: If you're having speed problems with downloads; something you can 100% take to the bank, and get CASH MONEY for, is that the problem is NOT at their end.

Another thing you can quote me on is the fact that I have seen, with my own eyes, the servers at Giganews totally saturate a 100 Mbit premium cable internet connection without seeming to break a sweat.

I have watched them go from a standing start to 100 Mbit in less time than it has taken me to write this sentence - and I am not the world's slowest typist. Depending on network congestion, I've seen them go from zero to network maximum in less than five seconds - often in one or two.

I have also seen, again with my own eyes, the network folks at Charter Internet throttle my internet speed rather dramatically! (You know, I don't think Charter likes these guys. . . . .)

As far as downloads are concerned, the only thing that would make my joy complete would be for them to start mirroring some of the more important Linux distributions, important Open Source projects, and back issues of Linux Format magazine!

Another thing they do, and do damned well, is provide highly secure VPN portals to various places all around the world.

Why is this important? Well. . . . .

First of all, at least in my case, I tend to be rather mobile. And I really don't know where I might be the next time I go on-line. And many of the places I connect at are, ah, (shall we say), somewhat less than pristine security-wise. (Can you say "Public Hot-Spot"? Ahhh! I KNEW you could!)

Being able to connect to a secure VPN connection that punches you through the wilds of that hot-spot to get you to the Internet is a Godsend.

Now, don't get me wrong. Simply punching through a hot-spot isn't the last word in Internet Security, and if that's all you've got going for you, than you're in huge trouble. However. . . It does protect you from others on that hot-spot who want to launch a sneak-attack on your system, or prevents you from falling prey to an "evil-twin" exploit. Etc. And that can be critically important, everything else being equal.

Another useful thing is that not only do they have a whole host of convenient VPN endpoints, these endpoints are located all over the world. Literally. Asia, Europe, the Americas. Even Russia! You name it, they got it. (Or will have it in two shakes of a tiger's tail.)

Why is this important? Simple. It allows you to appear to be somewhere else than where you physically are. And that can be damn handy.

Here are a couple of very simple examples:

First example:
My wife, (who came from Russia), loves to watch Russian TV and Russian movies, so she subscribes to a Russian entertainment web-site: etvnet.com. It's a subscription site, as in "for-pay", though they do have a whole host of free, (бесплатно), content as well. (Hint! Hint! If you're studying Russian. . . .)

There's only one kicker.

If you're not physically located in North America, (the United States or Canada), then No Enchilada Señor! Subscription or no, you cannot connect to their site. So, if we're traveling abroad, and she wants to catch the latest episode of an interesting mystery series, she's outta luck.

The solution? I punch through to a VPN endpoint physically located in the U.S., and I can connect to etvnet.com all day long if I want. And she can watch her Russian TV regardless of where we may be in the world.

Another example, just like the first, only going the other way:
There is a "coupon" site in Russia, Vigoda.ru, (I think), and they have periodic deals from various businesses, like resorts, who have excess product or capacity they want to fill. And the discounts can be rather dramatic. In the past we've scored all inclusive vacations at excellent lake-side resorts just north of Moscow for pennies on the dollar. Or maybe I should say kopeks on the Ruble? (grin!)

Since we periodically travel there to spoil our two delightful granddaughters absolutely rotten, and we like to take them to interesting places when we're there, if we can get massive discounts by booking before we go, so much the better.

Again, there's a location kicker. If you're not physically located there, then No Vodka and Caviar for You, Comrade! And, just like before, the solution is to punch through to the Shiny New VPN endpoint they just opened in Moscow Russia.

Which, I might add, is the particular inspiration for this Hot Smokin' Weapon! Award.

Back on the 14th of this month, (April, 2013), they announced a Shiny New VPN endpoint in Zurich Switzerland. And that's nice. I can think of all kinds of things to do with an endpoint in Zurich.
(Visiting CERN's lab comes to mind. . . . . .)

Coincidentally, (i.e. at the exact same time), we were having no end of troubles trying to book something nice for our granddaughters on said sooper-dooper deal site and I had narrowed the problem down to the fact that we were not physically there. So I sent a reply back to Giganews suggesting that, at some point in the future, if possible, they might, maybe, sorta' want to consider a VPN endpoint somewhere in Russia. If it could be located in Moscow Russia, that would be even better.

In a matter of an hour or two, my suggestion of a Russian endpoint, at some future point-in-time, if possible, maybe, had been responded to, and assigned a trouble ticket number. The very next day, I received a personal reply from a gentleman within the support team at Giganews telling me that they were always on the lookout for new VPN endpoints, and they appreciated suggestions like mine to improve their ideas.

The crowning point:
Six days later, Giganews announces a new VPN endpoint in Moscow Russia! I have the e-mail in my hot little hands, fresh in my inbox today. Not just somewhere in Russia, which would have sufficed, but exactly where I had requested! Now that's customer service with a vengeance!

I am still looking for more bandages to cover the scrapes on my jaw where it hit the concrete floor in my basement.

What else do they do?

They have a cloud storage product called, oddly enough, "Dump Truck", and everyone, even the lowest tier subscribers, get to use it - free of charge.

They have a sweetheart deal with NewsLeecher to provide you with free access to what is probably the best news-crawler software out there.

Not only do they provide all these VPN access points, they provide a cute little utility that automates the connection process for you. You click on the icon, select the endpoint you want, and away you go!

In other words, not only do they have one heck of a service, they go outta their way to make it work for you, instead of you working for it.

Since they know that not everyone needs the same things from a Usenet provider - some people read the occasional message or two on .alt.birdwatching.european.crows, while others, (like myself), use it as a major research tool - they have a variety of subscription plans.

These plans range from their more limited "Perl" level plan starting at $5/month, (for the bird-watchers), all the way to their power-user "Diamond" plan for $35/month, though they usually have a nice sign-up incentive for the Diamond plan that gives you a sweet discount for the first few months.

Of course, depending on the plan you choose, there is a greater or lesser amount of freebies included with it, though they go outta their way to make things as nice as possible for everyone - so even the bird-watchers feel right at home.

Go pay 'em a visit! (<== cleverly hidden hyperlink) And tell 'em that Jim over at QA TechTips sent 'ya!