VelociPeek

Song of The Day: Bugs - Artist: Pearl Jam

Wow. Given yesterday was the very first time consumers got to purchase and see Windows Vista, I thought I’d commemorate the launch by buying a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium and by installing it on my home desktop. As I write this entry, I’m now using Windows Vista and enjoying some of the benefits, but the upgrade did not come easy! From the time I stepped into CompUSA to pick an edition to the time I swapped system cards nothing seemed to “just work.”

Synopsis and Recommendation

So people don’t have to read the entire entry here’s a synopsis. Unless you have a relatively new PC with Vista drivers from vendors, don’t bother upgrading in my opinion. Wait until your drivers are available. If you have an outdated PC then it may be better for you to buy a new desktop or laptop with Vista pre-installed. To be honest I wouldn’t have bothered with the upgrade, but I am a software developer so it’s important for me to stay on top of things. When it comes to editions, I like Windows Vista Home Premium because it packages Aero, Media Center, and a few other goodies for entertainment use, but I guess the edition will depend on one’s needs.

If you don’t want or need hardware, OS, and driver compatibility hassles, and you are in the market for a new computer, you may want to consider buying a Mac. Although there may be other types of challenges with Macs, I’ve never had that much trouble with an OS upgrade on an iMac or MacBook. I know that this is comparing apples and oranges somewhat (e.g., perhaps should compare Dell/Sony “config” with Apple), but for $160 bucks, and from previous experience with Windows XP Home, the install should have been smoother. I’ll be watching out for other reports concerning OEM configs. If you want to read my painful saga of why I recommend this, continue….

The Painful Trek

Although my home desktop is a “custom built” PC and slightly aged, I still figured I’d fair well on compatibility because most of the components were purchased within the last year and a half (see below). Furthermore, since I didn’t have much on it in the form of data and programs, any backup would be, and was, simple.

However, I soon found out that the new Mac commercial isn’t all that far from reality when upgrading! It actually surprised me. My Vista installation reminded me a little of an installation involving an older distribution of Linux. Poor saps (aka me) would have to check compatibility lists, forums, and multiple vendor sites to determine what would and wouldn’t work. Sometimes installations would take hours. Enter distribution Vista.

LIST OF COMPONENTS

CPU - Intel Pentium 4 3GHz
Motherboard - Abit IC7-G
RAID Controller - HighPoint Tech SATA RocketRAID 1640
Disk - Two SATA Maxtor ~220G drives RAID striped
Ethernet - Linksys LNE100TX
RAM - 1Gig (2×512M) Corsair 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400
DVD - HP DVD-Writer DVD 100i
Video Card - Radeon X850XT
Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
OS - Windows XP Home SP2 w/ all critical updates from Windows Update

So when I got home with my new copy, I popped it in my DVD drive. Expecting an autoplay, I actually received the following drive window, “LRMCFRE_EN_DVD(E:),” and a single README file with the following text in it:

This disc contains a “UDF” file system and requires an operating system
that supports the ISO-13346 “UDF” file system specification.

Huh?

I checked into UDF. The technical specs for the HP DVD drive indicated support, but the drive was aging, so…

At that point I figured it was driver related, so I decided to run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor as recommended on Microsoft’s Vista site. It pointed out that my RocketRAID needed a driver, that my Linksys ethernet card wasn’t recognized, and that various other programs may not work (e.g., various DVD-based programs), but it did not indicate, however, that anything was wrong with my DVD drive.

I looked around on the Internet and discovered that certain older DVD drives may not be supported. Figuring this to be the problem, and knowing that DVD drives are not that expensive these days, I thought I’d venture out to buy a new one. However, before doing so I decided to take a chance and download and install 67 critical updates from Windows Update. I figured that one of those may rememdy the issue, but none did. The optional updates didn’t appear to be related to optical drives or disc formats, so I passed on those. Furthermore, after not seeing any Vista drivers for my Linksys LNE100TX, and not believing drivers would surface soon, I decided to pick up another ethernet card just in case. So, I headed off to Best Buy on a Vista peripheral hunt.

MSFT Tech Support

So I got home, hooked up an LG 18x External Multi DVD Rewriter and received the same message! Both DVD drives failed to read the disc. I even tried booting from the DVD drive based upon recommendations from online groups. Although it COULD read the disc for booting, I could not upgrade because Vista consistently directed me to upgrade from within Windows XP (i.e., having the upgrade version). At this point I called Microsoft Vista support.

To make a long story short, Microsoft’s Tech Support eventually directed me to use another computer’s DVD drive to see if it could access the software. Ironically, I could. How? Using my G5 iMac and OS X! That’s right. I had to use my Mac to copy the contents of the disc over the network to my Windows XP machine in order to perform the upgrade. What an unlikely coupling. I give credit to Microsoft’s Customer Support for being patient and trying multiple things with me to get the DVD recognized correctly. I only questioned, silently, when the person suggested that I contact “Windows XP” technical support regarding my suspicion that Windows XP Home was the culprit concerning UDF (i.e., would have expected them to take that action item).

And jumping this first hurdle allowed me to start my upgrade; there was much more to come. For example I could NOT upgrade because of another fatal error during the process. Maybe this could have been remedied, don’t know, but I decided to perform a clean install instead of fiddling with it, which worked. Another issue was that my Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum did not work–even with Creative’s latest beta driver. I had to revert back to my motherboard’s audio controller for sound. Moreover, there was still other hardware challenges (remember that ethernet card?) to tackle! All this fun for the bargain price of $160 :). Perhaps more tomorrow but for now…. 600) )4j

Update: Windows Vista Nightmare - Part 2

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, Windows Vista

Song of The Day: Cubicle - Artist: RinôÇerôse

I was checking out my backlog of Diggnation vidcast recently and caught Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s latest from MacWorld. Many know Kevin from digg and diggnation potentially, but not as many may remember him, and Alex, from The “older” Screensavers days on TechTV. I used to Tivo the show until the company was sold to G4 Media in 2004 and Leo Laporte left. Now, Alex and Kevin are together again, in a vidcast from Revision3, reviewing the latest and greatest digg stories each week.

I think Alex and Kevin are pretty entertaining now; however, for whatever reason, I never liked them together on The Screensavers during their brief tenure! I think it’s because they now appear more laid back, swigging beers, and they embark on comedic tangents during their tech reviews. It appears that iTunes fans agree because Diggnation receives mostly 4 to 5 stars in reviews.

Also, I have to root for Alex somewhat because he’s originally from Vienna, VA. Since I live in VA and worked for AOL off of Westwood Center in Vienna for a couple of years, there seems to be “some vague” connection there.

It’s funny to watch the show evolve too. I rewatched episode 1 from ‘05 when they covered a digg article that proclaimed “AOL Gives Up.” Basically, that was when AOL announced that they were allowing content to be viewed outside of their “subscription only” service (aka the walled garden). If you are an AOLer, and you watch that episode, you may need to forgive Alex for proclaiming AOL’s “walled garden” as a “jail of crap.” But hey, it’s all in fun and AOL has open things up since then.

Furthermore, the show has morphed from Kevin instructing “no f-bombs” in episode 1 to allowing more “expressive creativity” in future episodes, swigging beers remains constant. :)

600) )4j

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, Diggnation

Song of The Day: Welcome (Take 2) - Artist: The Who

Yesterday, Bill Marriott joined the blogosphere with this entry: Unchartered Territory. You’ll likely not read about it on TechCrunch or ValleyWag, but I think it’s significant because it shows how much the Web and blogs continue to attract all types of folks. He writes:

I’m venturing into uncharted territory as I launch this blog. A year ago, I didn’t even know what a blog was — until my Communications team began telling me about all the blog traffic on travel and tourism. Now I know this is where the action is if you want to talk to your customers directly — and hear back from them. Soon we’ll add an audio version of the blog. That’s how I’m most comfortable: telling stories and listening…Truth be told, I’m not very good with computers, although I couldn’t do business in today’s fast-paced economy without my cell phone, and my grandchildren have gotten me hooked on my iPod.

Well, truth be told I think I’ll have to be circling back to read about Bill’s rendition of how that 1927 root beer stand turned into a global, multi-billion dollar business :).

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, Bill Marriott, Marriott International

Song of The Day: Video Killed The Radio Star - Artist: The Buggles

HP research shows 8-fold increase in the number of transistors for programmable chips with less power consumption, meaning big performance boosts. The kicker? Apparently, the size of the transistor doesn’t change and it requires no changes to production manufacturing equipment.

As a result, Moore’s Law looks alive and healthy for the foreseeable future.

The WSJ reports:

Such improvements could bring new capabilities to an array of products, including communications switching systems, wireless networking gear, factory- and building-control systems and broadcasting equipment.

H-P’s approach is unusual because it doesn’t reduce the size of transistors, the conventional approach to increasing speed or data-storage capacity in chips. Each new generation of manufacturing technology for shrinking transistors can take companies several years, and billions of dollars in new production equipment. The pace of improvement is becoming more costly and difficult to maintain as circuitry reaches ever-smaller dimensions.

Assuming H-P’s techniques can be adapted for high-volume manufacturing, companies could improve existing chips without having to wait for factories to upgrade their production equipment.

A scientist at Mitre Corp. appears to like it too:

“That is [saving] five to 10 years [of] work at a stroke,” said James Ellenbogen, an expert in the field who is senior principal scientist of the nanosystems group at Mitre Corp., which manages U.S.-funded research programs. He characterized H-P’s results as “amazing.”

A little more information is here on c|net regarding the approach. A paper is due from the research engineers on 1/24 in Nanotechnology.

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, HP, Nanotechnology

Song of The Day: Daddy Won’t Sell The Farm - Artist: Montgomery Gentry

Swish! Nuttin’ but net. Seriously, another 2007 prediction concerning Time Warner selling a “media unit” comes true. Last week it was announced that Time Warner sold its music subscription service within AOL to Napster for $15 million.

The NY Times has a nice write-up on it. If the NY Times article is accurate Napster gets a deal at $43 a subscriber when it’s own subscribers are valued at $328.

Inversely, Time Warner also announced that it has agreed to buy TradeDoubler in efforts to strengthen AOL’s global advertising business.

Mr. Bewkes likes the deal while Alecta, 10% owner of TradeDoubler, not so much:

“Not only does our offer provide an attractive premium valuation, but it also will enable TradeDoubler to play a key role in our strategic focus on growing our online advertising business in Europe,” said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, president and chief operating officer of Time Warner.

But a Swedish pension fund called Alecta, which has a 10 percent stake in TradeDoubler, said it would vote against the agreement.

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, AOL, TradeDoubler, Time Warner

Song of The Day: Electric Avenue - Artist: Eddy Grant

Okay, maybe this is a bit macabre, but I couldn’t help but laugh at these this fine Friday. Why someone would volunteer, outside of training, I wonder. :) For whatever reason, Amanda Congdon at CES got zapped and there were a bunch of celebrities that got electrified as well for a reality series. At least the celebrities were supposedly required by law :).

So here is Ms. Congdon getting zapped and here are a bunch of celebrities getting trained in electrification.

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, Amanda Congdon, Taser

Song of The Day: Here It Goes Again - Artist: OK Go

That’s right. Although I preferred the Xbox 360 for consumer reasons, John prefers it for “developer” reasons. Read all about the CES interview here.

GI: You talked a lot about the Xbox 360. What are your thoughts on the PlayStation 3 now that you’ve had more time on it?

Carmack: We’ve got our PlayStation 3 dev kits, and we’ve got our code compiling on it. I do intend to do a simultaneous release on it. But the honest truth is that Microsoft dev tools are so much better than Sony’s.

[segment deleted]

I think the decision to use an asymmetric CPU by Sony was a wrong one. There are aspects that could make it a winning decision, but they’re not helpful to the developers. If they make the developers say that Sony is going to own the main marketplace, let’s make them develop toward this and build it this way, it would somewhat downplay the benefits of the Xbox 360 and play to the PlayStation 3’s strengths. I suspect they’re not going to overwhelmingly crush the marketplace this time, which wasn’t clear a year ago. A lot of people were thinking it’s going to be a rerun of the last generation, and it’s now looking like it might not be. I’ve been pulling for Microsoft, because I think they’ve done a better job for development support, and I think they have made somewhat smarter decisions on the platform. It’s not like the PlayStation 3 is a piece of junk or anything. I was not a fan of the PlayStation 2 and the way its architecture was set up. With the PlayStation 3, it’s not even that it’s ugly–they just took a design decision that wasn’t the best from a development standpoint.

This isn’t that surprising to me. This is dated, but when I developed on a Net Yaroze way-back-when for prototyping purposes, it had some familiar tools like a GCC cross compiler for Windows 95 and other helpful tools and libraries. However, they were all fairly “rough” for compiling, creating objects, converting meshes, and transferring assets to the console. At the time I coughed this up to buying the “prototype machine” versus the $20K version. Also, there wasn’t the Microsoft comparison. Now, the comparison comes to light because of Microsoft’s pre-XBox mission and “culture” of catering–or trying to cater–to developers. Although Microsoft hasn’t gotten too many points on aesthetic appeal or on certain technologies, they have tried to be developer friendly. Being able to use Visual Studio and MSDN-type help for Xbox development has to be nice for some folks. Sony was new to broad developer support back in the PS1 days and still is relatively new to the developer support game overall. Oh, and of course I believe Carmack (image below) :).

The asymmetric CPU issue caught my attention as well. Supposedly, a Sony 3D artist was fired for complaining about the difficulties with the PS3/development environment on his blog. As far as the CPU model, here is a decent overview of the advantages and challenges with the asymmetric design. If I find a link to other PS3 IDE challenges I’ll post them. Regarding asymmetric designs, so much time is spent making symmetric multiprocessor designs more deterministic (e.g., locking), I don’t even want to think about a model even “more” indeterministic :). May be faster on instructions and I/O, but there is more to consider IMHO (i.e., like getting Carmack-like folks as fans).

On a non sequitur note I bet Apple is working, or will eventually work, on a game “capable” home theatre machine. There are just too many points of leverage (i.e., OS X, good graphics, Apple TV, good developer support, and good hardware) for them to stay out of the market.

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, John Carmack, Xbox 360, PS3

Song of The Day: Blackjack - Artist: Ray Charles

Late tonight one could read Mossberg’s Personal Technology online (subscription required) column covering the latest cell phones. On a side note did anyone notice that he wrote it himself today with no shared authorship? Probably nothing, but wondered…

I thought it was interesting that he prefered the Samsung Blackjack because that was the phone I liked–at least until I saw the iPhone :). BTW I talked to a Cingular rep yesterday and they are telling folks that it will ship within a month of so. I guess I could believe that the FCC would approve things faster; however, I’m not sure the trademark infringement lawsuit will be resolved or the distribution will be ready. We’ll see.

Mossberg’s assessment on the Treo line-up:

Major phone makers like Motorola and Nokia have introduced models that have most of the Treo’s capabilities but are thinner, sleeker and lighter — and much less expensive.

I couldn’t agree more. After 2 years of lugging around a 5.9+ oz device, I am ready for something that weighs less! The newer phones offer compelling alternatives to the Treo.

The bottom line? Although I think Mossberg would wait for the iPhone rather than buy one of these two phones, he concludes:

Of these two phones, I prefer the BlackJack.

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, iPhone, Samsung BlackJack

Song of The Day: American Dream - Artist: Switchfoot

Well, the waiting and speculating is over. The Apple iPhone is real and it’s coming to a store near you soon. If the reports are correct it will be in June after FCC approval.

The keynote from Jobs is here.

It’s funny. I was in a Cingular store today around 10:30am EST looking at buying a Samsung Blackjack, a Blackberry Pearl, or possibly a Cingular 8525. The Cingular 8525 had nice features for a smart phone (e.g., WiFi, 3G) but it is a bit bulky for me at 6.21 oz and a little pricey at $399 with a 2-yr. contract and rebate. Since my current Treo 650 is too heavy for me at 5.9 oz, I decided against it.

The other phones were much lighter between 3-3.5 oz. and less expensive at approximately $199 with contacts and rebates. The Pearl was nice but without 3G. The Blackjack was nice but didn’t have a roller ball or camera flash. Neither had WiFi, which I thought I’d find useful. I’ve never been a big fan of Windows Mobile in the past; however, time has a way of making things better and better. Don’t really know enough about RIM’s OS although it seemed nice with the Pearl; Choices, choices, what is a consumer to do? Ultimately, I decided to wait and see what MacWorld would surface before delving into one!

Actually, I’m glad I did. With the tech specs, it’s a fairly light phone at 4.8 oz and packs a bunch of features like a 3.5″ wide screen, full-on OS X apps, a 2.0 megapix camera, and a “multi-touch” screen. Although it doesn’t support 3G, I wonder if it would even be missed (i.e., for me anyway). Still a bit pricey (i.e., $499 for 4G and $599 for 8B supposedly), but I may be willing to eat the cost given the features.

Not that this would take a lot of insight, but I think the approach is disruptive; it will eventually change the industry. To make all that hardware customizable software is awesome–as long as it all works well together. The mechanisms to view webpages and scroll almost have to be seen to believe :). Regardless, the approach is innovative, and seems imminent, as ease-of-use, flexibility, and faster turnaround prevails. From the keynote all signs are positive.

Oh yeah! One ‘07 prediction in the bag. I know. I know. There were other Nostadamus’s too.

We’ll see. I’ve decided to wait until June before making any final decision. My Treo 650 can suffice for a few more months. I am inclined to purchase one, but want to get a feel for it, etc.

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, iPhone

Song of The Day: (Get Up I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine, Pt.1 - Artist: James Brown

So with all the hype about Windows Home Server and a possible iPhone at CES and MacWorld, this article from a couple of days ago may be one of the most impactful to consumers: Total HD.

That’s Right! A DVD format.

Anyone who has been attempting to make a Betamax vs. VHS decision on hi-definition DVDs knows what I’m talking about. Walk down the isle of your favorite electronics store and you’ll likely see separate sections–usually side-by-side–of Bluray and HD-DVD movies. Forever together but electronic components apart.

Well, Time Warner and the Warner Bros. have supposedly come to the rescue: they are introducing at CES the Total HD disc, which supports Bluray and HD-DVD.

And even the retailers like Circuit City appear pleased with another (4th) format in the store:

In the short term, Total HD would actually add to the number of formats retailers will have to stock, raising it from three to four. However, Irynne V. MacKay, senior vice president for entertainment products at Circuit City, said she supported the idea because it took pressure off consumers puzzling over which format to invest in. “The simpler the future is for us, the better,” said MacKay.

Likely, no one has to worry about their current format and home theatre component becoming obsolete; however, we’ll have to read the details later this week. :)

Tags: Eric O’Laughlen, Total HD