Occasional Observations

Our sun room project is taking shape and it's time to lay down the electrical cables before the final layer of concrete goes down for the floor - topped by tiles. It's now or never for running Cat 6 Ethernet to far-flung corners of the room to terminate in flush-mounted floor sockets. I'm wiring up two of the four corners - and will have a third connection inside the living room. The cable for that will go in once we've knocked out the window ... which means three Ethernet cables into a junction box ... or a switch. Time to hit the local hardware store to investigate.

Labels: tech

Before the Large Hadron Collider was switched on, many people voiced fears that it would create a black hole that would suck in the entire world - and possible Universe.

Well, not quite. Or at least, not yet. So far it's only swallowed up a few billion dollars from the equity of some large investment banks.

Labels: tech

I think Skype's blown it with the new version, 4.0, which is currently in beta. I managed about a week with the beta version 4 before heading back to skype.com to download the old, familiar version, which is currently 3.8.

As I did so, up pops a questionnaire window asking why I was downgrading ... listing pretty much all my reasons ... which suggests that I'm not the only one who has been perplexed and irritated by the all-new "shiny" interface.

First of all, I have never wanted a full-screen Skype application. I use it more than anything else for IM - which doesn't need all my monitor's real estate. Even Skype isn't ready for full-screen: user images are tiny and pixelated. And moving between contacts in 4.0 was not intuitive.

Back to the drawing board, folks. The Skype Garage page for 4.0 says "it?s easier to start conversations and keep track of them" - which I dispute. And by the looks of it, 4.0 is not ready for prime time yet.

Labels: skype, tech, VoIP

What's really in my mailbox, and who's sending it? How many mails do I get per day and how good am I at managing email? Since I have had the feeling for a year or more that email has taken over my life, I downloaded Xobni, a nifty plug-in for Outlook, to find out more.

It's now more than a month since I installed Xobni, which offers "email organization, search and navigation", and that's been long enough for the Xobni Analytics to produce some interesting statistics.

To share some of the more interesting ones:

• I'm getting more than 120 mails a day, weekdays
• Overnight I've usually received 40 to 60 mails
• From 9am through to around 10pm I get a steady flow of between 8-10 mails an hour
• The peak day for receiving mails is Wednesday
• I'm most likely to respond fastest to an email received between midday and 1pm
• Send me a mail at 4am and it could take me up to five days to respond
• I'm sending about a third the number of mails I receive
  

You might ask: How has Xobni helped manage email so far? In short, it is starting to help: I've identified the people who email me the most (you know who you are!) and although this might sound like stating the bleeding obvious, this is a useful first step. One person in my top 10 has already taken action - he took a week off work, and of course his position in the table has dropped.

Although the analytics are useful to a point, they're far from perfect - Xobni doesn't seem to index mails that I delete immediately after receiving. I'd like to see greater accuracy in the analytics, but for now, for a free tool that's still Beta, it's a good start.

Labels: search, tech

Last weekend's aborted attempt to set up a dual-boot system made me think again about which flavor of Linux I'd like. After seeing a demo at a trade show of an OS booting off a secure USB drive and then starting a VMware player version of XP, I realized the answer was pretty obvious - Ubuntu. Version 8.04 is just out and this is a long-term release, too.

My previous reservations with Ubuntu have been that it's too simple, if that's possible - I was feeling restricted by the limited number of packages available for install. This week, RTFM time, and I discovered a straightforward way of unlocking further functionality, simply through enabling the installation of proprietary drivers etc ... which should solve the biggest problem I seem to have - 3D acceleration for my ATI graphics card.

This week I also came across a very, very smooth quasi virtual machine: MojoPac. It's XP only at the moment in terms of both platform and host OS, but apart from that, it uses underlying Windows services but provides a secure environment, running on a portable hard drive or USB stick. Interesting - except that I tend to carry my laptop on trips, for use during the journey. As a just in case - since the installation I saw took a mere 70MB, I'm going to set one up anyway as a just-in-case.

Labels: Linux, tech

I'm in the UK for a few days at InfoSec, the UK's main security show for the IT industry. And I'm overwhelmed by the number of so-called solutions out there to the same problems - spam, phishing, pharming, malware, spyware and even good old viruses.

What's more interesting still is the social engineering that many exhibitors are using to generate leads. IT guys who spend most of their time protecting their email address and other details are happy to let a blonde bimbo scan their badge (great! an unqualified lead) in exchange for a peek at their cleavage.

There's a couple of girls walking around - one is a devilish hell, the other a saintly heaven. So far the consensus among people I've talked to is clear: Hell!

Labels: tech

After problems with four separate pieces of software over the last week I've concluded that updated / patched is not always best.

As well as the already-documented Vista woes - solved by a downgrade to the 32-bit version, I've also experienced unprecedented problems with the latest version of Nokia's usually-excellent PC Suite - which didn't want to sync any more, a bit of a deal-breaker, and with the newest version of GoodSync from Siber Systems - telling me it's in Null Mode. In both cases, a rollback to the earlier version solved the problem.

The fourth problem has been with Linux. Maybe I should just stick to Windows, since I know its flaws. At 10pm last night I had to bite the bullet and delete all the work I'd done in updating my home PC to a dual-boot system - because Open SuSE crashed during the kernel update and there was No Way Back. Rather than having a half-cocked, non-functional Linux OS on my system I went into Vista Computer Management and simply deleted the Volumes under Disk Management.

Not quite ready for a return to Windows 2000 though.

Labels: rant, tech

Preparation for the big move to Linux on the main home PC has begun - but not without protest from other family members .... "oh no, NOT linux!" and "but I LIKE Windows!". As a compromise, we're going to move first to a dual-boot system. Anyone who wants to keep Vista can do so - and they can click through the "new device found" messages every time until Ballmer manages to persuade his programmers to find and fix the problem. If I need 'doze then I'll fire up my already-working and installed VMware image of XP Pro - it's a pretty minimal installation and so it should hop along quite nicely.

Step one - I'm going for Debian. Currently downloading the 3x DVD images of the AMD64-tuned version.

Labels: Linux, tech, Vista

I've been thinking about buying a living room PC for more than four years - every time I get close, something gets in the way. Originally I wanted a model with a small display panel built into the front, and I saw a few interesting prototypes at CeBIT 2006, but never followed up.

Since then, living room PCs have all but died out - in favor of home storage servers. My first attempt at this was a bit of a disaster, and my Netgear SC101 "toaster" is a nice NAS backup device but doesn't work with x64 architecture, which is disappointing. So far I'm still missing the media center extender that will bridge the gap from IT to TV ... and because we're remodelling at home I'm holding back, as we also soon need to upgrade our analog satellite TV system in favor of something a bit more up-to-date.

This weekend I did take a small step, though - moving my 500-or-so CDs out of the living room and into the basement. This means that if I want to listen to a CD in the living room, I need to go downstairs and dig one out - but since I'm more likely to reach for my iPod, this is a minor inconvenience.

Labels: tech

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.

Labels: nerd, tech, Vista

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.

Labels: nerd, rant, tech, virtualization

The early signs of spring always mean an annual trip up to Han(n)over, where the "Laatzner Volksfest" otherwise known as CeBIT takes place.

How times change ... this year's show is more SMB-focused but the biggest difference is that the place is half empty in comparison to recent years. The organizers, Deutsche Messe AG, have taken the brave step of closing Hall One, which is the size of several football fields and was home to all the big names in IT.

Why? The official word is that H1 is going to be refurbished or redeveloped into a congress center. The rumors are that it was to fill some big holes on the show floor. IBM's stand alone now takes up half of Hall 2, while SAP, Software AG and Microsoft are all in Hall 4, one of the biggest halls. You could spend a day exploring that hall alone...

What's utterly frustrating is that not only is H1 closed, but also its wonderful car parks. I don't see the logic in that one.

I don't miss H1, which was always claustrophobic thanks to its low ceilings and high booths, and it used to get damned hot, too. But I do miss the buzz. Where's it gone? Partly to Barcelona, for Mobile World Congress, and partly to Berlin, for IFA, the consumer electronics show.

What's most scary is that CeBIT today is starting to feel like the last few Comdex shows in Las Vegas. After years of decline, Comdex finally took a "holiday" and hasn't been seen since.

On a road sign near my accommodation in Hanover there's another reminder that things change - a faded and almost illegible sticker that proclaims that Commodore is the market leader in consumer PCs. It must be from the early 1980s - the inks used in the sticker have lasted way longer than the company's market share in consumer desktops. Food for thought.

Labels: tech

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.

Labels: nerd, tech

Labels: tech

The iPhone has arrived in Europe. As from today, T-Mobile Germany and O2 in the UK are selling iPhone models.

Here in Germany it's possible to pick up an 8GB iPhone on a 24-month contract for EUR 399 - a mere EUR 100 more than the 8GB iPod Touch.

T-Mo monthly contracts start at EUR 49 a month but they do include "unlimited" mobile data. "Unlimited" for the EUR 49/month model means 200MB before you're bumped down to dial-up modem speeds. At the top end 5GB a month is a lot for the mobile internet but so is EUR89 a month.

There are also a nice array of accessories, so you could easily blow through the EUR500 mark on picking up an iPhone today... the Bluetooth headphones look interesting, but they're EUR 119.

Labels: iphone, tech

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.

Labels: nerd, tech

The number of my unread RSS feeds just passed 1000. And RSS was supposed to be the way of streamlining all those blogs and news streams I wanted to read but never found the time to do.

Game over. I'm tempted to delete all my RSS feeds and start over.

Labels: rant, RSS, tech, web 2.0

Right now we have seven brand spanking new notebooks in the office - all needing initial configuration before they go into service at a demo day next week.

Getting this done is a test of patience. All come with Vista - and it seems that every machine behaves slightly differently out-of-the-box - for example with regard to network detection and runonce apps.

One thing that's common to all is that I've been reminded of that John Lennon song from Double Fantasy, Watching The Wheels. An OOB Vista installation already requires between 35 and 130-something MB of updates to bring it up to speed. That's larger than the entire Windows 98 install file...

Labels: tech

Once upon a time, one of the coolest things about email was setting up an out-of-office reply. A good reply would be pithy, to the point, and ideally make recipients jealous that they were sending email to someone who was, say, busy climbing a mountain or lounging on a beach.

The concept kinda faltered when people started moving to always-on email. First you'd get an OoO reply, then, a few seconds later, an often cryptic and typo-laden note from a handheld: "Got yr measg, wil reply ltr". Finally, the third email carried the response.

As people get more adept at always-on they tend to stop sending these "I'm on it" messages and simply provide the answer. Ironically, with always-on, an OoO would actually be more effective these days. Way back when, no reply meant the message had not yet been read. Today, no reply within nanoseconds means an inferiority complex: am I not important anymore?

However, the spammers have killed the OoO for good. I'd rather not send back a confirmation that my email address is live and receiving mail - it just means my email address is added to yet another spamlist.

In future ahead of spells when I'll be away from my email, I'm back to contacting people to proactively let them know. And this personal touch can only be a good thing.

Labels: tech

It's taken me a while to appreciate the benefits of the over-hyped "Web 2.0" - social networking sites where everything's linked. Way back in 2004-5 or so I tried sites like Flickr, del.icio.us, Last.fm - they were all cool in their own way but I was missing the interaction thing.

Take a bow Facebook. If you haven't created a profile yet, do it. This is the one: the site that best integrates info from other 2.0 sites although it's still early days. I'm very impressed. The site is just addictive, which is always a good sign. Thinking about ousting my 10-year homepage (My Yahoo) in favor of Facebook.

Labels: tech, web 2.0

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

So far, so good in my first experiments with desktop virtualization. I'm trying the free VMware Player and Microsoft's also free, and more functional, Virtual PC 2007.

With VMware, functionality is more limited with the free player, although there is a good selection of pre-installed open source desktop and server and it didn't take long to discover EasyVMX, a donation-supported free site offering basic VM creator templates. Using this I was able to install Windows XP in VMware Player - as well as by simply creating a new VM in the more functional MS VPC2007.

Despite making some noises, neither company has yet offered any patch to make its VMs compatible with the other.

I also tried Ubuntu desktop Linux with both VMs. The out-of-the-box Ubuntu .iso install with VPC hung on some corrupted graphics, while WinXP installed perfectly; with VMware, the Windows installation doesn't (yet) have any network connectivity but the Ubuntu image I downloaded works perfectly. Perhaps I can also get a ready-installed Ubuntu image for VPC.

Labels: tech, virtualization

Xing - "Sing" or "Crossing" depending on who you believe, is a social networking site big in Germany ... think LinkedIn auf deutsch or in Cantonese, increasingly.

I've used it for around three years and it's quite useful in tracking my contacts - think Plaxo without all those irritating emails.

Although it's not new, the XING plug-in for Outlook is improved, and I used it for the first time to import my contacts. To my delight, they come complete with picture - so now when I open up an email from anyone in my address book whose pic is on their Xing profile, I get their smiling (usually) face. Cute.

Labels: networking, tech

Second time around, the iPod experience (TM) is better. The 8GB Nano is super-light and has adequate storage space for a few days' worth of music non-stop. And here's a thing, the supplied headphones are louder than the set supplied with the 4G 20GB 'pod. I haven't checked the tech specs yet to see if the impedance is different. I suppose "louder" headphones = longer battery life.

Labels: mp3, tech

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?

Labels: mp3, nerd, tech

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...

Labels: iPod, mp3, nerd, tech

Is it just me or is Quicktime one of the cheekiest PC applications of all?
It's like a weed: once it gets on to a system it spreads and unless you get
the roots out (in this case digging around in the registry), it just keeps
coming back. Worse still, it tries to bring its friends. I don't want or
need iTunes on my machine any more than I need Real Player.

Labels: rant, tech

This blog has reached the dizzy heights of place 3,392,917 on Technorati. Since Technorati is "currently tracking 86.1 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media", that means top 5 percent :-)

Talking of top 5, if you're after a laugh, check Dory's new blog.

Labels: blog, tech

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!

Labels: nerd, rant, tech

My colleague Gerry van Zandt has set up a live-ish webcam so you can keep track of his every move ... except that he'll be in Europe during June, hopefully a "gone motoring" sign will take his place. The picture shown here is always the latest and greatest shot.

Labels: blog, tech

Labels: tech

...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.

Labels: nerd, tech

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.

Labels: nerd, tech