My biggest gripe about Windows 7 is the impact User Account Control has on the command line. Unless you turn UAC completely off, every time you run something on the command line that Microsoft has deemed requiring your password – even if you’re in the local Administrators group – you get an Access Denied error.

Screw. This. Noise.

This is the “ZOMG!!! If you run things as root you’ll destroy the planet!” Linux model.  I don’t like it in Linux, and I definitely don’t like it here. Which mean, yes, when I’m working in Linux I log in as root. Why? One reason is that I want to be able to break things, software-wise.  I want to understand why something has broken, how to avoid breaking it again in the future, and how to fix it. Knowing these things makes me a better admin.

The SU/SUDO model doesn’t really stop admins from breaking things, it just gets in their way.  Ordinary users need the protection of SU/SUDO, not experienced administrators.  It also gets in the way of doing certain things on the command line.

Which brings me back to Windows 7.

Microsoft made UAC much, much better in 7 than it was in Vista.  Still, even on its lowest setting, it’s getting in my way.  For example, I have a batch file on my computer.  Been using it for years.  The name of the file is DC.bat and it contains a single line: “defrag c:”.  That’s it.  In Windows XP, any time I want to defrag the hard drive I hit Windows + R, type “dc” and hit the Enter key.  Boom, done.  UAC prevents me from doing this in Windows 7, along with a lot of other things on the command line.

Forgive me while I repeat myself: Screw. This. Noise.

I completely understand the need to lock things down on a company network to protect the network from users who don’t know how to not break things, but this is a standalone computer with a single user – me.  Also, to toot my own horn, I’m a freaking expert when it comes to Windows.  I, and people like me, don’t need to be hamstrung by UAC.

So, finally, I turned it off completely.  My computer is now in the undocumented “You’re damned right I’m an expert” mode.

I use Firefox as my primary web browser.  One of the extensions I use is Gmail Manager, which checks my Gmail accounts) and tells me when I have new emails waiting.  Here’s what it looks like in use:

A few days ago, I noticed that I wasn’t getting any new emails.  I receive a ton of email, so this was unusual.  I logged into my Gmail account to find I had about 25 new emails waiting.  Gmail Manager obviously wasn’t reporting correctly.

I’ll spare you the troubleshooting steps I went through.  Suffice it to say I spent a couple of hours looking into this problem, and I was not the only person experiencing this problem.

My research led to one, and only one, potential solution.  There’s a service that every internet-connected computer uses called DNS – Domain Name Service.  See, computers don’t understand terms like www.gmail.com, they understand numbers.  The website www.gmail.com resolves to 74.125.47.17.  Now, any DNS server on the planet can resolve this address, and my computer was resolving it just fine.

Every ISP from AOL to Comcast to Mindspring provides DNS servers to their customers.  The internet would not work without DNS.

However, there is also a free third-party DNS system called OpenDNS.  You can manually tell your computer to use their servers rather than your ISPs servers.  When I set my computer to use OpenDNS, Gmail Manager started working again.

This makes no sense at all.  My computer resolved www.gmail.com to 74.125.47.17 both with and without OpenDNS. The DNS server I use should have no effect whatsoever on any service that uses it – yet, here it is.

The first rule of troubleshooting is to look for repeatability.  To that end, I went back to my ISP’s DNS servers and sure enough, Gmail Manager broke again.  I checked this on two other computers. Same result.

I can’t come close to explaining this, and I’ve worked with Microsoft Windows for over fifteen years.

I’ve tried many online file backup solutions and all of them have left me wanting.  Then I found DropBox.  DropBox works a bit differently than other online backups.  Rather than merely telling the software what folders you want to back up, DropBox creates a folder on your computer and it’s that folder that gets backed up.  I see this as a benefit because it keeps things simple, and it’s outside of the normal Windows ‘My Documents’ structure.  I like software that leaves me in control, and DropBox definitely does that.

Place a file in your DropBox folder and it’s immediately copied to DropBox’s servers.  This happens as quickly as the upload bandwidth on your internet connect will allow.  This is not technically real-time, but it’s fully automatic and doesn’t require you to manage a backup schedule.

There are two enormous benefits to DropBox.  First, you can install it on as many computers as you like.  Update a file on one computer, it’s pushed up to DropBox, and then in turn pushed to your other computers.  This keeps the DropBox folder on your computers perfectly synchronized.  I’m not aware of any other online backup solution that offers this.

Second, your files are available online through DropBox’s website.  Should you happen to need a file from your DropBox and you’re using a computer without the DropBox software installed, just login to their website and download your files.

DropBox will backup 2Gb of files for free.  If you sign up through this link, you’ll get an extra 250mb of space.  Higher capacity plans are available for very reasonable rates.

DropBox is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Mixero is a Twitter client.  It’s the only one I’ve seen so far that has the one killer feature I’ve been waiting for – keyword blocking ability. I can’t tell you how much I’ve wanted and appreciate this feature.

Overall, Mixero is quite easy to use.  Setting up groups only took a minute to figure out, and is quite easy.  It remembers window positions when you reopen the app. You can turn sounds off, resize windows, etc – all the basic stuff you’d expect. If you hover over a shortened URL it’ll show you where it leads before you click on it. I especially like the “Follow Conversation” feature.

However, I’ve encountered two annoyances in Mixero that might make me go back to Tweetdeck until they’re resolved.

1 – Usernames cannot be simply left-clicked. You must right-click and select Open Link. This wouldn’t be that big a deal if only it worked. Whenever I choose Open Link I receive an error from Firefox (my default browser): “Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because the protocol (event) isn’t associated with any program.”

Twhirl, Seesmic Desktop, and Tweetdeck all work fine in this regard, so I am inclined to think this is an issue with Mixero and not with Firefox.

The Twitter client used to post a tweet appears in the tweet. For example: “NASA, today at 6:20 AM from TweetGrid.”  If you right-click on TweetGrid (in this example) and select Open Link, it works just fine. Actual links in tweets behave as you would expect, opening a new tab in Firefox. Only when Open Link is chosen from the context menu on a username does this behavior appear. All this tells me it’s a bug in Mixero and should be very easy to fix.

2 – Whenever I click a link in a tweet, that tweet becomes and remains highlighted. New tweets do load, but I have to manually scroll up to see them. It’s as if the highlighted tweet has locked the position of the column of tweets. I have to close and reopen the group to restore normal behavior.

Now, I click on a lot of links in tweets. This workaround, closing and reopening a group, is something I’d have to do several times per hour, and I’m not willing to suffer the inconvenience. Software should not get in your way, ever.

3 – If you have a group open on the immediate left of the main window and then open the Options dialog, the Options dialog box is behind the main and group windows. You have to move either the group or main window aside to get to the Options dialog box.

Those are the only major issues I’ve found.

The list of features I’d like to see is a short one: multiple account support and the ability to customize the color scheme.

Because personal computers are indeed (or at least should be) personal, I encourage you to give Mixero a try. To get the beta, you have to follow them on Twitter and wait for an invitation.  I had to wait three days to get mine, but of course I cannot guarantee what sort of wait you might have.

Twitterberry: I’m running the Beta version of TwitterBerry. When I load my Friends Timeline, it shows me the tweets from the last time I loaded my Friends View. I manually have to tell it to refresh. Then, when it does refresh, I loads the new tweets above the ones I currently see. This is as it should be, but then I have to manually scroll up to get to the newest tweet.

Gmail: The Gmail client behaves somewhat similarly – it shows me the emails I had the last time I refreshed them in the client. I have to manually tell it to refresh.

Facebook: The Facebook app doesn’t show me every post from my friends, nor does it show me every comment I receive. Loading the mobile site doesn’t help, either. The only way I can respond to a comment is via the full (meaning non-mobile) Facebook website. This is downright annoying. Also, choosing Close from the menu should close the app and not just take me back a screen. That’s what the Back button is for.

Typepad: How can a huge and popular blogging service like Typepad NOT be mobile browser friendly? I was reading Seth Godin’s website on my Blackberry earlier. It looked like hell because I had to scroll past Seth’s huge (on a Blackberry screen) sidebar. Come on, Typepad. Get with the program.

Amazon: The Amazon.com app for the Blackberry is pretty darn good, but I do wish it had the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature. That would make the app rock.