Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Vista SP1
After all the recent probs with Vista, maybe SP1 is the answer? The installation was super-smooth and trouble-free. Let's hope it's the start of a great relationship.
Finally in-sync
Sometimes, the bundled solution isn't the best. This definitely applies to some of the tools within Windows Vista. This time I'm talking about syncing offline files, but first, some context.
Yes, another Vista rant. But I'm entitled to this one, having been through the pain of having to completely reinstall Vista on my notebook. I had actually weighed everything up and had decided to revert to XP, except that Vista seems to have done something proprietary to the MBR on my hard drive and the XP installer couldn't see it. There was NO WAY that I was going to make fresh backup copies of the 30 or 40GB-worth of data on my D and E drives and then format the whole drive. Just forget it.
Anyway, having reinstalled Vista I made the mistake of reactivating it on the first day - and of course the install was corrupted, because after a shaky six days I needed to reinstall again. This time I couldn't afford any offline time at all so went out and bought a spare notebook, which has now been deployed as an upgrade for a colleague. She's delighted...
Fingers crossed this time around and no I could not wait for SP1 to come out. For the first ever time, I chose the "upgrade" option - upgrading a non-functional version of Vista to a functional version is an upgrade, right? And yes, I'm back in the honeymoon period where the system is actually really quite fast despite having only 1.5GB of memory. I picked up a 4GB USB stick at CeBIT which works nicely with readyboost and my apps open a bit faster, too.
Of course there is an upside to a clean install - you lose some of the drekk that's built up on the system. Programs that I'd installed, messed around with and then dumped. From here I have resolved to restrict such installations first to my XP VM that's running in VMware Player (Google around to find out how, it's pretty simple with QEMU) as it's pretty simple to roll back a VM, also I have a couple of backup copies on various drives.
Getting to the point, I sometimes for convenience carry around a local copy of important ongoing work files - because I can't be online when travelling. I decided to once again try the sync option built into Windows, but it still sucks really badly and leaves multiple temp files at both ends when trying to sync - I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to solve this. Instead I spent a whole $30 (about the price of a Chinese take-away for two now in Euros) on a super little program called GoodSync from a company called Siber Systems.
It's my second $30 purchase from Siber - the first being the wonderful RoboForm, which stores all my login passwords and other credentials, including my credit card details, and helps me fill-in online forms. I keep the RoboForm data on a fully-encrypted USB drive so the data is safe and sound.
GoodSync is exactly that - and it's lightning fast, too. This is perhaps the most visible difference between it and the built-in offline file sync capability of Vista, apart from those temp files which can quickly fill a few GB if you're not careful. Once again, proof for me that something that's free has no value.
Yes, another Vista rant. But I'm entitled to this one, having been through the pain of having to completely reinstall Vista on my notebook. I had actually weighed everything up and had decided to revert to XP, except that Vista seems to have done something proprietary to the MBR on my hard drive and the XP installer couldn't see it. There was NO WAY that I was going to make fresh backup copies of the 30 or 40GB-worth of data on my D and E drives and then format the whole drive. Just forget it.
Anyway, having reinstalled Vista I made the mistake of reactivating it on the first day - and of course the install was corrupted, because after a shaky six days I needed to reinstall again. This time I couldn't afford any offline time at all so went out and bought a spare notebook, which has now been deployed as an upgrade for a colleague. She's delighted...
Fingers crossed this time around and no I could not wait for SP1 to come out. For the first ever time, I chose the "upgrade" option - upgrading a non-functional version of Vista to a functional version is an upgrade, right? And yes, I'm back in the honeymoon period where the system is actually really quite fast despite having only 1.5GB of memory. I picked up a 4GB USB stick at CeBIT which works nicely with readyboost and my apps open a bit faster, too.
Of course there is an upside to a clean install - you lose some of the drekk that's built up on the system. Programs that I'd installed, messed around with and then dumped. From here I have resolved to restrict such installations first to my XP VM that's running in VMware Player (Google around to find out how, it's pretty simple with QEMU) as it's pretty simple to roll back a VM, also I have a couple of backup copies on various drives.
Getting to the point, I sometimes for convenience carry around a local copy of important ongoing work files - because I can't be online when travelling. I decided to once again try the sync option built into Windows, but it still sucks really badly and leaves multiple temp files at both ends when trying to sync - I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to solve this. Instead I spent a whole $30 (about the price of a Chinese take-away for two now in Euros) on a super little program called GoodSync from a company called Siber Systems.
It's my second $30 purchase from Siber - the first being the wonderful RoboForm, which stores all my login passwords and other credentials, including my credit card details, and helps me fill-in online forms. I keep the RoboForm data on a fully-encrypted USB drive so the data is safe and sound.
GoodSync is exactly that - and it's lightning fast, too. This is perhaps the most visible difference between it and the built-in offline file sync capability of Vista, apart from those temp files which can quickly fill a few GB if you're not careful. Once again, proof for me that something that's free has no value.
Labels: nerd, rant, tech, virtualization
Friday, February 08, 2008
Google Desktop's 3GB
A few months back, I mentioned the 3GB that Google Desktop was swallowing. I thought the index was residing on my D drive but it turns out that this was just an old version of the index taking up a mere 818MB. As the 3GB was still growing, and was impacting the performance of my 20GB C drive partition, it was time to act.
So out with the whole thing - and start over. A drastic move I know. Although I love the index especially for its ability to magically make deleted and purged emails reappear, I'm probably able to live without emails I deleted a year or more ago.
Google Desktop was therefore purged, including all traces (eg the registry) and then I started again. This time around I'm also being more selective in ripping through the network drives. I don't really need 2004 PPT decks. In fact, they should not really even be on the server any more but that's another story.
There's probably a GDS plug-in for indexing shared Exchange folders ... THAT I would find useful. Off to search now.
So out with the whole thing - and start over. A drastic move I know. Although I love the index especially for its ability to magically make deleted and purged emails reappear, I'm probably able to live without emails I deleted a year or more ago.
Google Desktop was therefore purged, including all traces (eg the registry) and then I started again. This time around I'm also being more selective in ripping through the network drives. I don't really need 2004 PPT decks. In fact, they should not really even be on the server any more but that's another story.
There's probably a GDS plug-in for indexing shared Exchange folders ... THAT I would find useful. Off to search now.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Line Rider - surely the most addictive online game ever
Line Rider is most definitely NSFW (not suitable for work) because it's addictive. So addictive that there are a number of competing sites out there offering the same Flash plug-in. My favorite is this Line Rider site, simply because it's the first I found.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Skype, Outlook 2K7 and the missing 40MB of memory
For weeks I've been aggravated by the same error message: "A data file did not close properly the last time it was used ..." from Outlook 2007 - but since the quick fix was just to let the system do the integrity check and then Shut Up and Go Away, I didn't tackle it.
Until now. The tipping point was when I closed down Outlook and then 10 minutes later, discovered that it's still hogging 100-plus MB of system memory. When it's not even supposed to be running any more. There's also low-level CPU activity, but I've closed Outlook, I'm not defragging, my VPN's dropped, in fact I even disconnected from the grid to see if this would change things. It didn't.
Plenty of Googling around eventually leads me via those wiseguy Mac users advising me not to use Outlook (like I suggest not using Leopard right now, dude) to "yet another MS blogger" - but that's false modesty as this YAMSB has an answer that helps get to the nub of the problem. It's not Outlook, it's the plug-ins, stupid. From here it's a downhill race and simple process of elimination until I discover that Skype is to blame - at least for the memory-hogging. Skype has the "useful" function of importing my Outlook contacts so I can call them via Skype instead of a POTS system (I don't, usually).
A bit of task killing and a restart later and Outlook is "only" using 44MB of system memory. That by itself is a start. You need to be online with Skype and have Outlook running to stop Skype sharing.
However, Outlook is still refusing to shut down properly. Running in safe mode is much faster, well, at least by Outlook standards - except that it tries to "synch" those lame standard installed RSS feeds with my hand-picked ones at start-up (the answer is NO!! Get out of here and never come back again. Ever).
Now Outlook is running at a super-lean 13MB, and it's quite fast. Amazing. Skype isn't running, by the way. So I re-run OFFDIAG, the Office diagnostics program, which usefully tells me it fixed one problem, although it won't pony up the details even in advanced mode. (Sigh) As ever it's "package 36 of 36" that takes the longest to run.
Next is another reboot, with Skype consigned to the sandbox. Let's see what happens next. At least I got some of my memory back :-)
UPDATE: What happens next is that Outlook runs faster - and closes down as it should. Problem solved. Next: well, I suppose other Vista performance issues. Just like XP, after six months or so the whole system slows down, due to crowded logfiles ad infinitum. Also I have my eye on the 3-plus GB that Google Desktop is taking up, as I'm trialling software called SmartDesktop which could, theoretically, give me that 3GB back. Watch this space.
Until now. The tipping point was when I closed down Outlook and then 10 minutes later, discovered that it's still hogging 100-plus MB of system memory. When it's not even supposed to be running any more. There's also low-level CPU activity, but I've closed Outlook, I'm not defragging, my VPN's dropped, in fact I even disconnected from the grid to see if this would change things. It didn't.
Plenty of Googling around eventually leads me via those wiseguy Mac users advising me not to use Outlook (like I suggest not using Leopard right now, dude) to "yet another MS blogger" - but that's false modesty as this YAMSB has an answer that helps get to the nub of the problem. It's not Outlook, it's the plug-ins, stupid. From here it's a downhill race and simple process of elimination until I discover that Skype is to blame - at least for the memory-hogging. Skype has the "useful" function of importing my Outlook contacts so I can call them via Skype instead of a POTS system (I don't, usually).
A bit of task killing and a restart later and Outlook is "only" using 44MB of system memory. That by itself is a start. You need to be online with Skype and have Outlook running to stop Skype sharing.
However, Outlook is still refusing to shut down properly. Running in safe mode is much faster, well, at least by Outlook standards - except that it tries to "synch" those lame standard installed RSS feeds with my hand-picked ones at start-up (the answer is NO!! Get out of here and never come back again. Ever).
Now Outlook is running at a super-lean 13MB, and it's quite fast. Amazing. Skype isn't running, by the way. So I re-run OFFDIAG, the Office diagnostics program, which usefully tells me it fixed one problem, although it won't pony up the details even in advanced mode. (Sigh) As ever it's "package 36 of 36" that takes the longest to run.
Next is another reboot, with Skype consigned to the sandbox. Let's see what happens next. At least I got some of my memory back :-)
UPDATE: What happens next is that Outlook runs faster - and closes down as it should. Problem solved. Next: well, I suppose other Vista performance issues. Just like XP, after six months or so the whole system slows down, due to crowded logfiles ad infinitum. Also I have my eye on the 3-plus GB that Google Desktop is taking up, as I'm trialling software called SmartDesktop which could, theoretically, give me that 3GB back. Watch this space.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Wish I'd thought of this
The Fake Steve Jobs blog is just an inspired idea - I almost snorted coffee this morning when catching up on what's been posted over the last 24 or so hours.
Seems to be that there's an element of truth in those posts. Very cleverly done, and an enormous amount of work to keep it going. Catch it while you can.
Seems to be that there's an element of truth in those posts. Very cleverly done, and an enormous amount of work to keep it going. Catch it while you can.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Busted (by the BBC)
And so my BBC iPlayer trial has hit the rocks. "Sorry, you appear to be outside the UK" and therefore no downloads. Ah well, it was worth a try and to be honest I'd never heard of any of the programmes that were on offer, so just chose one at random to test the download.What's particularly interesting is that even though I "closed" the iPlayer application, "Kservice.exe" is still running and seems to be the cause of a lot of network activity. This little beastie was installed as part of the iPlayer set-up.
Could it be that although I'm outside the UK and therefore "not allowed" to watch the BBC, I'm still able to "help out" in the file-sharing process?
According to its entry in the Windows console, Kservices.exe is a "Delivery Manager Service". It's pretty easy to switch off (for good) - run services.msc, go into the properties of kservice, change its startup type to disabled, and don't forget to manually stop the service if it's still running.
Immediately I stopped it, the network activity in my VM ceased.
Kservice has a sister - khost.exe, or the "KonTiki Secure Delivery Plug In". Today, Kontiki belongs to Verisign, but their website doesn't return any results for khost or kservice.
Deep on the BBC's website is the Kservice removal tool, Kclean although I'm going to leave the software in my VM, in its disabled state - ready for the next time I'm in the UK.
Friday, July 27, 2007
BBC iPlayer's bite
The much-hyped BBC iPlayer is now officially into Beta, so despite my disappointment with Joost, I thought it would be nice to be able to tune in and see what I'm missing out on, from time to time.
Problem 1: You have to live in the UK (presumably there's some IP address lookup going on)
Problem 2: You need Windows XP
As I'll be in the UK shortly, I fired up my XP VM to bookmark the sign-up page - then complete the registration from a UK IP address.
Until I read the small print, that is.
Clause 17 states: "When you install the BBC iPlayer Library you will also install peer-to-peer file sharing software from Verisign Inc. This software has a file share (sic) feature that allows other BBC iPlayer users to download BBC content through your personal computer (using part of your upload bandwidth), via a secure link, to their personal computers. ... When you use the BBC iPlayer Library you shall not have the option to 'switch off' the peer-to-peer functionality as this is a core component of the BBC iPlayer Library."
BitTorrent, byte by byte, is going legit.
However, for now, it looks as if µTorrent is more convenient.
Problem 1: You have to live in the UK (presumably there's some IP address lookup going on)
Problem 2: You need Windows XP
As I'll be in the UK shortly, I fired up my XP VM to bookmark the sign-up page - then complete the registration from a UK IP address.
Until I read the small print, that is.
Clause 17 states: "When you install the BBC iPlayer Library you will also install peer-to-peer file sharing software from Verisign Inc. This software has a file share (sic) feature that allows other BBC iPlayer users to download BBC content through your personal computer (using part of your upload bandwidth), via a secure link, to their personal computers. ... When you use the BBC iPlayer Library you shall not have the option to 'switch off' the peer-to-peer functionality as this is a core component of the BBC iPlayer Library."
BitTorrent, byte by byte, is going legit.
However, for now, it looks as if µTorrent is more convenient.
Labels: iptv, multimedia, nerd
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Virtualized XP: the ultimate Windows version?
A few days into messing with virtualized versions of Windows and XP beats Vista hands-down - it'll get even faster when I've finished switching off all those unwanted services. Even had a conversation on Skype the other day with someone who was running it within a VM. I haven't gone that far, yet.
Running Vista within Vista was a mistake. My system(s) slowed to a crawl. It was agonizing. A colleague recently told me that these moments spent waiting for the mouse to respond / something / anything to happen actually have a name: Bill Gates Contemplation Moments.
Somewhere at home I've got a CD with the original release of Windows 95, which I haven't used since early 2001. I'm thinking about installing it as a VM and then loading up my copy of Railroad Tycoon - if I can find a working floppy drive to copy the info on to a USB stick. I think we've got a floppy drive somewhere in a box at home although there isn't one that's actually connected to a working computer.
Running Vista within Vista was a mistake. My system(s) slowed to a crawl. It was agonizing. A colleague recently told me that these moments spent waiting for the mouse to respond / something / anything to happen actually have a name: Bill Gates Contemplation Moments.
Somewhere at home I've got a CD with the original release of Windows 95, which I haven't used since early 2001. I'm thinking about installing it as a VM and then loading up my copy of Railroad Tycoon - if I can find a working floppy drive to copy the info on to a USB stick. I think we've got a floppy drive somewhere in a box at home although there isn't one that's actually connected to a working computer.
Labels: nerd, virtualization
Friday, July 20, 2007
Booting Vista within Vista
Don't try this at home - unless you have a ton of patience (and a few GB of RAM): I booted Vista within Vista, as a virtual machine. My dual-core machine with 1.5GB of RAM normally has enough to run Vista - allocating half of that to the VM was a mistake.Meanwhile, XP Pro runs flawlessly as a VM in just 256MB RAM. I think that's a clue as to Vista's processor and memory-intensive demands.
MS offers the Vista VM as a free 30-day download but I don't think it'll even stay 30 hours on my machine unless I happen to stumble across a couple of GB of RAM this afternoon.On a totally different note, the Firefox plugin forecastfox has been keeping me up-to-date on the weather outside, and offers a
one-click look at the weather in my favorite locations around the world.Labels: nerd, tech, virtualization
Monday, June 18, 2007
Four steps to 320kbps
Am I the only one who makes MP3s in such a convoluted way?
1. Rip to wav file with Winamp
2. Convert top MP3 using winLAME
3. Sort out peaks using MP3Gain
4. Tag using mp3tag
Is there an easier way, without compromising quality or filename integrity?
1. Rip to wav file with Winamp
2. Convert top MP3 using winLAME
3. Sort out peaks using MP3Gain
4. Tag using mp3tag
Is there an easier way, without compromising quality or filename integrity?
8GB Nano is Apple's second chance
Love the iPod, hate the fragility of a hard-drive based version and the rubbish battery life of my 4G model (on days that it deigns to work), so an 8GB Nano is my second iPod.
Since I'm mid-way through the task of encoding all my CDs at 320kbps it's going to be quality, not quantity. 320k on a Nano is undoubtedly overkill but short of creating a second set of lower bitrate CD rips, I'll still be able to fit in around 900 songs.
What to put on it? I'm thinking about new stuff only. Apart from the singles I haven't listened to the full albums from bands like Snow Patrol and Arctic Monkeys. Also I want to try much-hyped artists such as Amy Winehouse to see what all the fuss is about.
"This would be a perfect introduction to iTunes!" you exclaim. Indeed - except that I still buy my music on CD and rip it at the bitrate(s) I want...
Since I'm mid-way through the task of encoding all my CDs at 320kbps it's going to be quality, not quantity. 320k on a Nano is undoubtedly overkill but short of creating a second set of lower bitrate CD rips, I'll still be able to fit in around 900 songs.
What to put on it? I'm thinking about new stuff only. Apart from the singles I haven't listened to the full albums from bands like Snow Patrol and Arctic Monkeys. Also I want to try much-hyped artists such as Amy Winehouse to see what all the fuss is about.
"This would be a perfect introduction to iTunes!" you exclaim. Indeed - except that I still buy my music on CD and rip it at the bitrate(s) I want...
Monday, June 11, 2007
Önly in Österreich
Just back from a few days at Lake Garda in Italy. The drive there takes us across the Brenner Pass, and fearful of long weekend queues at the toll booths, I registered and paid online in advance for the "Video Maut" - which uses number-plate recognition.
On the outbound trip, the only hitch was that the longest line was for ... the Video Maut booth.
On the return trip, the longest line was for ... the Video Maut booth.
But then - a hitch. Our car registration wasn't recognised - the barrier dropped and we were diverted to a toll booth to explain ourselves and pay up.
Shurely shome mishtake, I suggested.
Oh no, came the answer: it's quite common that the system doesn't recognize umlauts in vehicle registrations. In Österreich of all places. Perhaps only in Austria!
On the outbound trip, the only hitch was that the longest line was for ... the Video Maut booth.
On the return trip, the longest line was for ... the Video Maut booth.
But then - a hitch. Our car registration wasn't recognised - the barrier dropped and we were diverted to a toll booth to explain ourselves and pay up.
Shurely shome mishtake, I suggested.
Oh no, came the answer: it's quite common that the system doesn't recognize umlauts in vehicle registrations. In Österreich of all places. Perhaps only in Austria!
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Make Vista scream
...because, goodness knows, it's made me scream a few times in the last months. Anyway, to celebrate finding the cause of my bluescreens (take a bow, Google Desktop) I have treated my system to a 1GB ReadyBoost-capable flash drive. This is in addition to the 1.5GB of memory already installed.
Finally, it flies. In fact, it screams. Scary just how much memory is needed for it to do so, though.
Finally, it flies. In fact, it screams. Scary just how much memory is needed for it to do so, though.
Monday, March 19, 2007
CeBIT observations
Here's some observations from CeBIT:
* Visitor numbers seem to be up on last year but many of the halls are deathly quiet off the main track through.
* Cheap / free entrance tickets have flooded the local market ... lots of consumers on the show floors. Fine, but is CeBIT a business show or a consumer showcase?
* Some people will "collect" just about anything - the legendary freebie hunters. Put dog turds in plastic bags and people'll pick 'em up.
* Only one bidder on my daft auction so far (thanks Gerry).
* Classic CeBIT weather is back - snowy wind, rain showers. Yeuch.
* Visitor numbers seem to be up on last year but many of the halls are deathly quiet off the main track through.
* Cheap / free entrance tickets have flooded the local market ... lots of consumers on the show floors. Fine, but is CeBIT a business show or a consumer showcase?
* Some people will "collect" just about anything - the legendary freebie hunters. Put dog turds in plastic bags and people'll pick 'em up.
* Only one bidder on my daft auction so far (thanks Gerry).
* Classic CeBIT weather is back - snowy wind, rain showers. Yeuch.
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