Please pardon the appearance of this post.  I am using the web based editor.  I also tried to clean up the appearance in a blog editor, too.  No dice.  This post looks fine in both areas.  Weird.

Moving on ….

Let me take a guess and say in a word, “No.”

Will Service Pack 1 reduce the absolutely huge system requirements needed to run Windows Vista in all of its full “Aero” glory? No.
Will Service Pack 1 reduce the absolutely bloated footprint of a clean install of Windows Vista? No.
Will Service Pack 1 make my machine run Windows Vista faster? No.
Will Service Pack 1 suddenly make all of those buggy hardware drivers work properly? No.
Will Service Pack 1 suddenly increase the size of Windows Vista’s footprint even more? Yes.
Will Service Pack 1 fix those “little” issues with Windows Vista that should of been fixed before Windows Vista’s release? Yes, some of them. I bet not all of them.

I could go on and on about Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista. I’m just trying to make a point. The above observations give me more than enough reason to stick it out a while longer with Windows XP Professional. That is, until Microsoft releases Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, which I am sure they’ll put something in there to “break” a bit of the functionality within Windows XP, thus forcing people to “upgrade” to Windows Vista.

Oh, you don’t think Microsoft would do something like that? They already did. Look at DirectX. They did it with Windows NT 4.0. They’re doing it now with Windows XP (And yes, I’ve heard about the “tweaks/hacks” people have done to games, thus enabling DirectX10 “effects”).

Let me put it this way, Microsoft has offered me nothing new. They only thing they are currently offering in terms of Vista is me going out to purchase faster hardware in order to run Windows Vista in the first place.

And please, will all of you software manufacturers get off your rear ends and start moving forward with designing your products to run within 64 bit operating systems? What good are these 64 bit operating system environments if the software applications we’re running on them are designed to run on 32 bit? Talk about the biggest of marketing gimmicks.

Holy crap that game rocks.  Valve continues to showcase the superior Source Engine, and it just gets better and better. PC Gaming just doesn’t get any better than this.

Words just cannot describe the playability factor of Half-Life 2: Episode 2.  You have to experience it to believe it.  Why not go to steampowered.com and sign up?  You’ll be glad you did.

For the record, I took off work today due to my aching back, and managed to finish the game mid-morning.  All totaled, it took about five and half hours for me to beat it.

And finally, I won’t spoil it for you, but I will admit that the ending to Episode 2 definitely has me longing for Episode 3.

Yep. I recently took the Vista plunge on one of my machines. Grave mistake!

I’ve had enough of the nonsense. While Windows Vista is a great operating system environment, it’s still got way too many bugs to make the entire experience of using Windows Vista worthwhile. I suffer from the “music skipping” syndrome via Media Player 11 (or any other media player for that matter) which was more than enough to make me ditch Windows Vista until Microsoft and/or the hardware vendors get off their rear ends and produce drivers that actually work. What can I say, I have to have my music (and no, I am not changing out my sound card. Why should I? The damn thing works just fine under XP, so wouldn’t it make sense that something as simple as a sound card should work under Vista, too?) Not to mention gaming performance has been less than impressive, and we’re talking games which ran like Super Pursuit Mode on XP, but suck on Vista.

I am rather appalled that Microsoft would release Windows Vista in such an early infancy, Windows XP was never this bad when it was first released. Yes, I know, the driver model has changed dramatically in Windows Vista; so that being said right there is reason enough Microsoft should have waited another year before releasing Vista to the public.

Cripes, I feel like I am using beta software when I run Windows Vista. Not good.

So, all that said, I am going to wait until Microsoft and/or the hardware manufacturers can produce drivers that actually work. Whether that appears, who knows. Service Pack 1 be damned, just make the thing work people. While Windows Vista clearly has incredibly awesome potential, I wish Microsoft wasn’t so greedy to release an operating system which clearly isn’t ready for prime time yet.

Tags: vista problems, xp, drivers

Ok.  I know I went off on Vista a while back, and I am sticking to what I said because I’m stubborn like that.  However, being I work in the education industry and Microsoft products account for around 98% of what I implement and support, I no longer have any excuses left to put off installing Windows Vista. 

I have Windows Vista Enterprise Edition installed on my home machine, and I have to admit, it runs pretty well, although the memory usage is pretty heavy, and I have 4 Gb of RAM on this machine, of which just a tad under 3.5 Gb is actually being used by Windows Vista.  I could of went x64, but I’ve heard horror stories about a serious lack of drivers, so I decided to stay away x64 for now.

Windows Aero?  Ok, it looks nice and pretty, but what does it actually give me besides pretty “glass-like” effects and “flip 3D” all while using gobs of memory?

And why does my video system all of the sudden add shared memory to my BFG GeForce 7900 GT 256 Mb video card?  What’s up with that crap?  Shared memory for video is a disaster and why does Windows Vista do it?  That’s total B.S. if you ask me.

I noticed that a lot of things take far less time to load, like Windows Live Writer for example.  On my Windows XP build, it was an absolute dog when it came to the program load time. On Vista, it’s far, far faster.  Got to be the enhanced index “superfetch” features, right? 

Once I get used to Windows Vista more, I’ll have lots more to say about it.  For right now, I like it, but it could be far better.  My biggest pet peeve right now?  I do not like how the task bar does not stretch to my second screen in my dual monitor layout.  That sucks.  Yes, I know there are third party solutions to solve the task bar issue, but shouldn’t Vista get it right in the first place? 

What other Vista anomalies have you noticed?  Please share.  I’d like to hear about them.

Yesterday, my generous and loving wife purchased the Canon S5 IS for me.  I’ve been lusting this camera since I knew of it’s existence months ago.  Folks, this is one solid camera, with an almost SLR-like feel to it.  Before I go on here, I want to state for the record that I do own an SLR camera, specifically the Canon Digital Rebel XT.  I love that camera, but man, the lenses I want for that thing cost way more than the camera itself, and I cannot justify the expense.  This is where the S5 IS comes in.  Here’s a brief list of the major features:

- 8 megapixel image sensor, increased from the 6 megapixel S3 IS

- DIGIC III processor for more accurate shots, better noise reduction, faster start up time, and faster overall camera operation.  Speaking of start up time, this camera starts up and is ready for a shot in one second.  Doesn’t get much quicker than that on a camera in this class.

- Increased video recording time from 1 gig to 4 gig, which now allows for an over 30 minute video capture on the highest quality setting.  Pretty slick.

- 12x optical zoom with USM and UD

- IS optical image stabilizer

- New flash hotshoe which allows use of select Canon Ex Speedlight flashes

- ISO 80-1600

- Full array of automatic and manual controls

- Makes use of newer HC SD cards (we got the Sandisk SDHC Ultra II 4 Gb)

- Large 2.5 LCD swivel monitor

- Battery life of approximately 450 shots on a set of NiMH batteries

 

I understand that a lot of people are a bit upset over the slightly decreased battery life over the S3 IS.  I see this move as a positive step, considering the new features of the S5 IS will use a bit more battery power.  Besides, 450 shots is a lot of photography, and it doesn’t take much to have a spare set of fully charged NiMH batteries in a camera bag, like I always have when I used my older S1 IS.

Image quality is near SLR quality.  I am totally impressed with this camera, and it’s ability to compose a shot using the automatic settings are top notch.  I even more impressed with the plethora of manual settings, too.  I prefer to shoot using the manual setting of my SLR, so it’s only natural I prefer to use this on my new S5 IS.  Noise at higher ISO settings is a drawback to his camera, but that’s pretty much to be expected in a camera of this class.  Besides, I can clean up the noise fairly well using Photoshop or Paint Shop Photo Pro XI.

The bottom line, a very solid upgrade from the S3 IS, and definitely a huge upgrade from my older S1 IS model.

I will have a more detailed review of this camera once I capture a few hundred shots to put it through it’s paces. 

Until then, peace out, folks.

Thank you all for your great feedback concerning Ubuntu Linux.  I gotta admit, I am really close to making a “complete” switch. Although when I say “complete,” I mean I’ll still have a Windows XP partition available for gaming purposes only; being that games aren’t exactly up to snuff on Linux……yet.

Once again, thanks to you all for your awesome and encouraging feedback.

About four weeks ago,  I replaced my old, dying 19 inch LCD with a brand spanking new Samsung 20 inch widescreen LCD. I was in heaven! That is, until I started messing around with more and more applications and utilities which forced me to move application windows around.

Well, yesterday I’ve had enough of the “musical chairs” with my desktop. I finally added an additional Samsung 20 inch widescreen LCD (same model, too) How cool! Now, I have a nice and roomy 40 inch desktop to play work with, as you can see in the photograph below.

Tags: dual monitor, dual widescreen, lcd

Wow! What a long several weeks it’s been. Between the demands of work, and the demands of home, I just didn’t have the time to sit back and spew out my thoughts on a few things. One thing I’ve been meaning to talk about on here is Ubuntu Linux, which I installed on my laptop about three weeks ago. I went with Ubuntu 7.04, and after the mere 10 minutes it took to install it, I never looked back since. I’ll never run any flavor of Windows on that laptop again … Ubuntu is *that* good. Ubuntu comes with everything you need out of the box like a solid email client; in this case Evolution. Firefox is packaged as the standard web browser, too! What more could a geek like me ask for? Well, there’s more! Ubuntu offers a lot of eye candy, if your system meets the requirements. One of my favorite visual features of Ubuntu is the “page flip” feature when switching work spaces; this feature actually “flips” the entire desktop on a cube around to another workspace, and the acceleration is silky smooth. Ubuntu’s “page flip” feature will make your geek friends drool with envy as they attempt to show off their “Windows Flip 3D” via Windows Vista. Not to mention the Ubuntu “Alt Tab” task switcher. Top that Windows Vista!

After running Ubuntu at home, I also installed it on my primary maintenance box at work. Since I’ll need access to a Windows Server 2003 box from time to time for domain related maintenance, I installed the totally free VMWare Server and created a Windows 2003 Server virtual machine. Let me tell you, it’s slick, and it works!

Ubuntu will seamlessly allow you to mount a Windows drive share via Samba, which is something I use constantly at work. I use a NAS at home, and Ubuntu had absolutely no problem mounting my share, especially since the NAS I use uses embedded Linux.

What can I say? Everything just works. Well, almost. I’ve been deciding on whether or not I am going to make a complete switch to Ubuntu Linux on my desktop machine at home. That idea is still up in the air because there are a LOT of Windows programs I use for my digital photography needs (something I could solve with VMWare, or Wine), not to mention sometimes my appetite for a good round of GTA San Andreas sort of makes it impossible on Linux, too. Of course, I could go with a dual boot, but that would require repartitioning my drive, and the associated nonsense that goes along with it. Bah, I am just too lazy to do that sort of stuff at home anymore.

How many of you have made the switch from Windows to Linux? And if so, have there been any regrets? What open source alternatives have you found to replace your Windows applications (in case you didn’t go with a solution like VMWare or Wine)?

I just want to make sure I have all of my bases covered before making a move on my desktop machine, if at all.

Tags: ubuntu, linux, open source

For many Microsoft System Administrators (including yours truly), this is indeed a bad move in the wrong direction. But of course, are we surprised; especially with Microsoft’s Vista offering? Puh-lease.

Thanks a freaking heap, Microsoft.

Instead of Vista on my home machine, I am giving Ubuntu a very serious consideration, I’ve had it about up to “here” with Microsoft.

The grass is looking a lot more and more greener every time I look at the other side.

I’ve installed the Beta 3 of Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition onto a test box today. Installation was a breeze. A couple quickies I have noticed (I won’t get into many details just yet):

• Like I said, installation is a breeze, didn’t take much time at all on the test box I’ve set up, which is a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 H/T with 2 Gb RAM and 200 Gb hard disk space. I believe the operating system uses approximately 11 Gb of space once the install was complete.
• Once the operating system is set up, it’s a bare bones build. Great idea, which is brought along from Windows Server 2003. Remember the days back when installing a Windows 2000 Server and it would default with IIS on the build? How dumb.
• I installed IIS 7, and I must say, the new IIS management console is slick. I like it. A lot. I’ll be putting up a test site to see if I like IIS 7 even more (important for what I do).
• Much improved firewall technologies, you can now specify inbound and outbound connections. Pretty much like Vista’s firewall I believe.
• Improved system logging (again, this is important for what I do).
• A bunch of other enhancements and new utilities which I’ll get into further with an upcoming post.

Overall, I am impressed with the look of Windows Server 2008 Beta 3. Now, all I need to do is put it to work and see how it will hold up in a test environment. Hmmm, perhaps a “test” blog with a SQL backend for starters.

Stay tuned.

Tags: windows server, beta 3 ii