RANTS: The search for a Latitude E6400 USB device driver

I'm still amazed that drivers are still so cumbersome to find and install. I consider Dell to be a bit better at providing stand-alone drivers, which is handy because I like to build the software on machines from scratch, as opposed to running a restore image from a manufacturer. In this case, I'm having trouble finding the correct driver for a USB Device, according to Device Manager in Windows XP.

I tried talking to Dell Support yesterday via online chat. The CSR gave me two things to try, but I ended the session because I thought of something else that I needed to do before trying the two suggest downloads. The two downloads were the AMT HECI and AMT SOL/LMS drivers. Neither of these installed correctly. Both resulted the following error message:

This computer does not meet the minimum requirements for installing the software. Setup will exit.

Today, I got back online to talk to Dell Support again via chat. We ran through all the usual drivers and possible problems. At some point, I gave him the Device ID from Device Manager for the device in question, which was USB\VID_413C&PID_8149\6&6060274&0&1. I believe this helped him with discovering that the Dell HTML site does not have a driver (R197537) for the radio control on the bluetooth chip. This is different than the bluetooth driver (R197513) on the included discs, which I already installed. The HTML site did not have either of these drivers listed for Windows XP.

For future reference, here's the link to that driver:

http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R197537.EXE

Hope this helps someone. Happy computing...

RANTS/RAVES: Researchers find ways to sniff keystrokes from thin air

On one hand, I'm excited to see the research that people are doing and the results from it. On the other hand, it's another security threat that I might need to address in the future. How would I protect against this? Touch-screen keyboard like the iPhone? Virtual keyboard like the bluetooth Virtual Laser Keyboard? More importantly, what are the chances that there are people who would go to the great lengths carry out this plan?

Here's the rest of the story:

http://www.itworld.com/security/64193/researchers-find-ways-sniff-keystrokes-thin-air