OS

Windows Vista RC1 Take 2

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I know I said I thought I was pre-determined to not like Vista in my original post about it, but there are plenty of annoying things that just scream out at me. Some stuff looks nice also, but all that I have found that I like are all UI things. No real substance.

My first major complaint is that the control panel is different. For example all the elements you could previously get via the display control panel are now separated. So you have to go looking for the control panel option for the screen saver, screen size, desktop, etc. It is annoying. I also looked for 15 minutes and could not find where the option to NOT let Vista log me out after an extended period of time is kept. In XP and older versions it was configured in the screen saver options.

The major thing that drives me crazy is how you have to install software. Since at work everything is on a network drive I have to say ok to launching something from the network, and then I have to say it is ok to install something, since Microsoft likes to ask me if I really want to do what I am telling the OS to do. That is nice in theory, but if you get too many dialog box’s you tend to just say yes to them and not read them. I thought they (MSFT) figured that out with 2003, but apparently they didn’t learn their lesson. In fact they decided to take it a step further. Jayson says this all the time, but by turning off all the options of a browser by default does not make it more secure. Users will just say yes to the warning box when they try to run something. They will also look less at each box the more of them they get.

Now on a good note, I was surprised how quick Office 2003 applications such as word and excel opened when launched. I didn’t get a chance to use the apps since I really don’t work on a windows box anymore, but I was happy with the snappy performance. Of course the performance better be that nice on a 64bit AMD 3000+ with 2gigs of RAM.

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First Thoughts on Windows Vista RC1

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I downloaded RC1 of Windows Vista over the weekend. I have been hesitant to test it out, but I finally broke down and got it. This is the first release of Windows since I have had a computer that I will not use as my main OS. I don’t count Windows ME in that last statement. I may not want to use XP anymore, but before I became a Mac fan I used it. 2000 was good, NT 4 was stable, but not much hardware would run on it. 98 (all flavors) was slow and crashed, but it was an improvement over 95. 95 was better than windows 3.1, but still wasn’t awesome. The more that I look back the more I realize the pain I went through over the years with these OS’.

I look at Vista in a different light since I look at it not to be my new electronic home, but to see what it is about and see if or when it will have a place at the company I work at. I honestly go into evaluating it, not expecting to like it. I admit I am biased against it based off of everything I have read. My initial assessments reaffirm that fact.

I decided to test it on a physical machine, since I was concerned about the performance of it in a virtual machine. I took a brand new HP desktop that we are deploying and tried to install the Vista DVD. First thing I learned is that our brand new AMD 64bit desktops don’t have DVD drives in the stock configuration. My trusty external drive came in handy. I then learned after 2 attempts that I could not install vista by booting the computer and getting the DVD to load. It started to work, but every time the install UI tried to load the dam computer blue screened. This happened twice until gave up and just loaded the XP build I had on it and just started the install from within windows. I don’t like to do this, and when the process was done I had a windows.old directory. What I would give for a clean install!!!

The install once I finally got it to work, seemed to take forever to run. It honestly took like 2 hours on brand new hardware with 2 gigs of ram. I wasn’t sure about this hardware being fully compatible with Vista since it has an integrated video card on the mother board. Everything did finally install.

Initial performance thoughts are mixed. It didn’t seem faster than XP. The UI did seem sort of cartoonish. It is like they tried for the slick UI that the mac has (and newer linux distributions) but just didn’t get it. They did have some cute UI features like blurring some of the text of items that are visible behind some transparent windows.

The install pains I had alone where not a good start. I didn’t get to do much further testing on it before I went home for the night. I am interested to see how bad IE 7 is. Jayson put a version of IE 7 on an XP box and had only bad things to say about it. I will see if I have time tomorrow to do more testing. I will have a follow up posting with more feedback. For now I can safely say unless Leopard is total crap I will stick with the Mac for now.

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Boot Camp

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Every news site on the internet is talking about Boot Camp. It is an awesome idea. It really is, but since I am very picky I will be honest when I say it is not what I wanted! Really. I think having Windows on a Mac is a necessary evil. I just don’t want to have to dual boot. I have 2 Windows XP desktops at work (as of today, that number does change week by week) to augment my Powerbook for things like MS Access, Visio, Active Directory tools (when I am lazy and don’t want to use remote desktop), and other Windows only software. I honestly don’t use those machines very often. The main reason I use Windows at work is to run Vmware admin tools for my ESX and GSX servers, and Workstation to test desktop software installs. For home use I use Windows for 1 thing (not counting my dvr) and that is Quicken. I can’t stand quicken for the Mac. To dual boot for one or two applications would be a pain.

What would really be fantastic is a virtual machine running in OS X that would load up Windows. Lets face it, you own a mac for reason. I don’t want to deal with Windows if I have to, but I don’t want to run it all the time. Having a virtual machine that you can turn on and do one or two things with, and then turn off would be better to me than rebooting into XP. I tried virtual PC 5, 6, & 7 on the PowerPC, and it was so slow. Now that Apple has an Intel chip a virtual machine could be a viable option. Don’t get me wrong, Boot Camp is a great idea. I just think there are better things to come, I hope!

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Mac Linux Tools

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Yesterday’s issues did have one positive (well sort of) piece to it. I had the need to install a bunch of network monitoring tools on my powerbook. I know that allot of software from Linux/Unix has been ported over to the mac. I have used a bunch of it, but when you actually go looking for stuff and almost everything you try to find has been compiled to work on the mac you have to think, cool!

Some of the new tools on my Powerbook are now: NMAP, XNMAP, Etherreal, MTR, and more. I of course have the Darwin Ports install on the computer, but I honestly haven’t even cracked the surface of what I can run on it.

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I Actually Used This For Years With No Question?

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I can’t believe I actually used Windows without question for years. I just got my dad a brand new HP desktop (he wanted a really small computer and this was the smallest name brand I could find) and I am setting it up for him this weekend. I am taking all his old data and copying it over to the new machine and then setting up all his applications for him. In theory this is not a big deal, but in practice it has been a huge pain. How can a multi billion dollar company like HP build a consumer device like a PC that simply doesn’t work well out of the box? They include a bunch of stuff to try and make it easy for a normal person to get up and running but in practice it has sucked.

My first issue is the fact that HP (not to pick on them since Dell and other do the same thing) put every free game or trial software they could think of on this computer. I had at least 20 programs I had to remove from the computer that would just take up space and memory. My dad doesn’t do his finances on the computer so why would he need both Quicken 2006 and Microsoft Money? The crap pre-installed on the machine is not a huge issue. I have had this problem for years with almost any computer maker.

What I truly don’t understand is the lack of testing of the software build put on these computers designed for the mass market. When I buy a computer and take it home and turn it on, everything pre-installed on it should work flawlessly. it was pre-installed for heavens sake. Why then does a brand new computer freeze up when trying to reboot it, but after 5 minutes it actually does reboot? Why would the built in AOL setup not complete the initial login and crash the machine? Same thing goes for the auto update for Java. I turned the computer on and it asked to be updated so I said ok, then the thing freezes and wont go away from the screen until I rebooted. Does anyone know how to test software builds anymore?

I can go on and on about the problems I am having with a brand new (supposedly clean) windows install but will just say I am baffled. I guess I have passed the point of no return with using my Mac, since I get frustrated every time I try to use a windows workstation. Granted I deal with Windows server allot in my job, it has its issues, but those are totally different from sitting at a windows desktop and working on it. I truly cannot see myself using a windows desktop again if I continue to have these stupid problems every time I try to use one. I am not being a nit pick, and I know what I am doing. It is simply just frustrating to use.

OK, my venting is over. I got AOL to finally work after a reboot (what a shocker). I will continue to setup the machine later. Hopefully the Palm setup doesn’t drive me to the bottle!

As a side note I will say that the HP Pavilion Slimline PC itself is sweet. it is super small for a windows box, packs a decent processor, 1gig of ram, a 200 gig SATA hard drive and dual layer DVD burner. Not bad for under $600. The software is just killing me.

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Computer Rebuild, Again

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Today I am wiping my Presario desktop. I am moving all my DVR hardware onto it and re-installing the OS. My little DVR machine is fine, but it does not have enough inputs (internal or external). That made it difficult to add extra drive capacity or another TV tuner. Since I am not really using my more powerful Presario desktop for anything other than remoting into it to use VMWare I figured I would combine the two. The hardware should be able to handle both tasks without any problems. It is after all an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with 1.5gig of ram and 2 250gig SATA hard drives.

I am in the process of installing Windows XP now. hopefully the Beyond TV & Beyond Media install’s go well, and I have no problems with the video capture cards. More news later

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My New Linux Box

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I have not had good luck getting Suse Enterprise Linux 9.0 installed on my new server again. it is not me. I cannot even get to the partitioning screen using text mode. The machine just hangs. As I said before when I try using Suse 9.3 I get told that it cannot find a hard drive. The drive is there fine, but for some reason the software wont find it. instead of messing around with those distributions I am just going to use the older (but totally usable) Suse 9.1. Lets face it I am going to mess up the install and need to do it again. I don’t want a distribution that will cause me headaches to install. With Suse 9.1 I can install it in vmware on my XP desktop and mess with configurations I am thinking of trying on the physical machine. Yes this is for personal use, and yes it may be overkill ot use a test machien. This is what I do. I deploy things. This is the smart way to do it, and it saves me from having to reload the hardware each time (and I anticipate it being many times) I mess up the OS.

So far I have 9.1 on the new box, and I am waiting to configure it. Doing some other stuff right now, but I figured I would take a break to write a bit. Updates later.

New Server, Almost

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I took the plunge and forked overs some money to build a “decent” server to run my site on at home. I got a tiny desktop case CPU, RAM, & DVD drive for really cheap. I already had a drive for it. I built it today and I am now trying to put linux on it. I am going for Suse 9 Enterprise or Suse 9.3. Not sure what will end up on it just yet. I put Suse Enterprise 9 on before but had problems so I am trying it again.

Right now I am having media issues with both 9.0 and 9.3 so I am not happy. I am still very new to the Linux crazy so I am very frustrated.

Now that I am building this new machine I have a few decisions to make. Do I keep using Typepad, or host my own blog using Moveabletype or WordPress? I like Typepad, but I am not sure if I want to pay to host when my subscription is up when I am hosting my own server. I liked moveabletype as a program but it is a pain to setup. I proved that today with several attempts at configuring it right. I hear WordPress is good, and they “claim” to have a simple install process.

Not sure what I am going to do just yet. I just want to get Linux installed and working right now…

OS Tiger (10.4)

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I told myself I would wait, or I didn’t need it. But when Apple finally released tiger, I decided I wanted to go get it. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t available until 6pm Friday. I thought it would be available Friday. Turns out it was available just around the time I was done dropping the rental car off and able to go down to SOHO to the Apple store.

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I got to the store and I told myself I should flee right now. The place was mobbed. There was a line around the corner and halfway down the block to get in. This was probably like 6:30PM. I figured I would get on line and see how long it would take. I could always leave.

I am glad I stayed. it was weird. There were tons of people. A guy in a tiger suit (sorry no photo’s). People with video camera’s. It was an interesting spectacle. People kept walking by going I wonder what is going on at the apple store that had such a line. By waiting on line I think I may have become one of “those” Mac people.

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Thankfully I didn’t listen to myself and I stayed on line. After less than 15 minutes I was in the store, grabbed my copy of Tiger and was on my way to the line. A store employee “suggested” I go upstairs because of less of a line as he moved me towards the stairs. I am glad I listened. it was crowded upstairs but I got on line and only 1 other person was in front of me. With less than 30 minutes passed from the time I got on line, I was on my way out of the store. Not bad. I didn’t linger to look at the warez since it was crowded.

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Busy Day

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Today was at times very busy and very easy going. What do I mean? We finished our work upstate early, so we decided to head home. But as we were doing that others had problems that were ongoing. Jay and I decided to hit the Walmart on the way home. I needed food.

After loading up on food and a new watch we headed home. When we rent cars and go upstate we usually fill up with gas at the last gas station in New Jersey on the palisades parkway. Well it was closed for construction. We had no choice but to get fuel in the city. Have you seen many gas stations in Manhattan? I haven’t either.

After dropping my groceries off at my place we headed off to find fuel. Jayson knew of a place near his house (which BTW was near the rental car return place). By now it was after 4pm on a friday in NYC. traffic was horrible. it took us 40 minutes to get to the gas station. then we had issues with it being too crowded and we were unable to get a pump on the side where our truck had the gas cap. After a fit of frustration we were going to drive into queens to find a station and then come back (we were right by the 59th street bridge anyway). knowing that would take forever we doubled back and the original gas station we went too was less crowded. 20 minutes after we originally showed up to the station, we got fuel. Another 20 minutes (to go 3 avenues and 8 blocks) we dropped off the rental car.

I was then off to the Apple store. I wanted the latest OS (10.4) and it just went on sale. See next post for details.