Upgraded Desktop from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate: Much Happier Now!
I finally got around to upgrading my desktop (quad-core, 4GB RAM) from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (RTM) - both 32-bit Editions. Wow! What a difference. Under Vista, the PC's drives constantly thrashed for reasons I never understood (4GB RAM not enough)? The PC's hard drive is now virtually silent. No thrashing. It runs and feels like a completely different (better so far) PC.
The only thing I've noticed lost so far is support for the Bluetooth USB I have on a hub. I rarel use it. And, it was always flaky under Vista anyway. I should probably invest in another USB Bluetooth stick.
Microsoft Store Missed Marketing Opportunity: Bada-Bing Bar
I've been reading various blog items about Microsoft's planned Microsoft Store (physical variety) and how their clone of Apple's Genius Bar will be called either the Answers Bar (boring) or Guru Bar (copy cat). Personally, I think Microsoft is missing the marketing boat on this one. The Answers/Guru bar should co-market with HBO and be called:
The Bada Bing Bar 
CentOS 5.3 packaged installs are a mess
I spent the vast majority of this decade (up to 2008) manually installing and configuring the AMP part of LAMP. It seemed like a good idea to try to use only the pre-packaged and autoupdated by the Linux distro maintainers. It seemed like it would be a lot faster (it is) and cause much fewer headaches. Unfortunately, my favorite distro's current version, CentOS 5.3, uses ancient versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP. And, their configurations (such as no Apache DSO support compiled in) are causing me so many problems that I'm going back to manual AMP component installations.
I'm also going to take another look at using Ubuntu for my Linux server needs.
AMD Dual Core Better Deal Than Intel for Windows Virtual PC Testing
The still-in-beta Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 needs hardware virtualization assist. However, many (most) Intel's low-end processors (even quad core models) do not support Intel VT-x. I recall spending a lot of time checking various comparison tables before buying my Dell quad-core PC last year to make sure its CPU supported VT-x.
When I thought my old PC running Windows XP died (or so I thought - see previous blog for its revival) a few weeks ago, I went to Costco and bought the cheapest PC they had - an eMachines (yes, I know I swore off them a while back, but $340 is a good price) PC with an Athlon X2 4050e processor. Generally speaking, none of the sub-$400 PCs with Intel Core Duo or Core 2 Duo processors I looked at a year ago supported Intel VT-x. So, I didn't expect this ultra-cheap AMD based one to provide AMD-V hardware virtualization. But, a quick check of its BIOS configuration shows that it does have that feature and that it is turned on by default.
I still haven't gotten around to installing Microsoft's in-beta virtualization products under Windows 7 RC yet. But, it is nice to know that I can since I didn't expect to do be able to test it for a long while.
CPU Heatsink Fan Died: A First for Me
I've been using PCs for more years than I care to admit. And, while the early PCs didn't need or have cooling systems, I'm fairly sure that most PCs for the last decade have had a combination of heat sinks and fans on the processor to cool it down. An old PC running Windows XP started acting oddly a couple of weeks ago. Then, it started spontaneously rebooting after, I think, less than 10 minutes of use. I assumed it was bad RAM and opened up the cover to do a little diagnostic work. After removing 1 of the 2 DIMMs, I turned on the PC and noticed the fan on top of the CPU heatsink stuttered but didn't spin up. So, I rummaged around the remains of other dead PCs and found a fan that fit reasonably well, screwed it down and plugged it in. The PC seems to be running ok with the replacement fan now. But, I'm still surprised to have seen my very first CPU fan failure after all these years. It is not one of those parts that I expect to see go bad.
Podbean’s New Podcast Statistics Feature is Broken
I've been using Podbean's podcast storage and feed service since late last year (2008). It is, quite honestly, the most inexpensive service I could find with the features and storage levels I wanted. In other words: They provide the best deal I have been able to find so far.
The recently changed their statistics reporting feature. I've been trying to convince them it is a broken user experience for me to no avail. One major change is that their statistics no longer reports near-realtime activity. It also no longer lets me display recent activity of all podcasts. Well, here's something I'm going to point them at: It is plain broken. I posted a new podcast (with Celio Redfly's marketing manager) on Friday night. As of Sunday morning, Podbean's chart for that podcast shows no activity.
However, if you look at the recent activity list just below the chart itself, you can see that this podcast is, in fact, actively downloaded through its iTunes feed or from the embedded web player in blog entry for it. I'm going to point Podbean's tech support to this blog item with screenshots in the hopes this will get them to at least fix this one aspect of this broken user experience.
FYI: My podcasts focus on mobile technology. The vast majority of these podcasts features guests from various mobile tech firms. You can find recent podcasts described at:
Regained 52.6GB Disk Space After Windows Vista SP2 Update: Also 45005 Registry Changes
After seeing this in PC World...
Windows Vista SP2: Readers Report Big Increases in Free Disk Space
...I decided to take some notes when updating the only PC I have running Windows Vista to Service Pack 2 (SP2). Here's what I found.
1. I had 74.4GB free hard disk space before beginning the SP2 update. I had 137GB free after the process and before rebooting the system. So, I recovered 52.6GB of disk space.
2. The SP2 update includes two reboots. The second reboot comes after the second phase of the three phase update process.
3. My screen went text-only during the second phase of the update and 45,005 registry changes were made during this phase based on the messages on the screen. You can see a frame grab above from a video I recorded during this process.
4. There was still 137GB of free space remaining after the second reboot from the third update phase.
Configuring VirtualBox to run Moblin 2.0 Beta
Moblin is a Linux distro developed by Intel and Novell that is tweaked for netbooks. I decided to test it out in a virtual machine first to see if I liked it or not. If you use the free (for personal use) VirtualBox 2.2.2 like I did, you need to make two simple configuration changes to the VM before starting to install Moblin. If you look at the screenshot above of the VirtualBox General-Advanced settings, you can see red arrows pointing at the two configuration options that need to be selected: APIC & PAE/NX.
The screenshot above shows Moblin 2.0 Beta running in VirtualBox. I'm not very impressed with Moblin 2.0 Beta so far and probably won't try it on a physical netbook. I think Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR) is better suited for my netbook Linux needs.
Windows 7 RC Pushing Us to Go Green?
I mentioned a few days ago that migrating an old desktop PC from Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 Release Candidate seemed to result in a noticeably slower system. I think I know why now.
Taking a look at Win7RC's power options on the desktop showed just the "Power Saving" and "Balanced" settings visible. I had to dig into the Advanced Options to find the "High Performance" power setting. Selecting this seemed to restore the desktop's performance to what it "felt like" with Win7Beta (I haven't performed any actual performance tests).
I wonder if Microsoft is trying to force users to go green (or buy faster PCs) by thinking that Balanced is the faster processor performance option available after a quick glance?
If your PC seems slower after migrating from Win7Beta to Win7RC, check your power options and hunt for the High Performance power setting.
Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi
YouTube video courtesy of OreillyMedia
I enjoyed Brian Jepson's YouTube video demo of an Arduino based on Massimo Banzi's book (from O'Reilly Media) so much that I ordered the book...
Getting Started with Arduino (Make: Projects)
Various models of the board have been produced over the years. You can see my Arduino Diecimila board in the photo above next to an Apple remote control for size comparison.