Over the past year or so, several solutions have appeared that allow users to synchronize files between a central web site and several computers. I love having my data up-to-date in and instantly accessible on my home machine, work machine, and laptop, as well as having the ability to access everything via my iPhone. I’ve tried three different services, each of which has benefits and disadvantages.
Microsoft’s Windows Live Mesh is in beta, but is very usable today. Once installed, you can select any folder or file to add to the Mesh, and choose which accounts and machines can sync each one. There is no way to see syncing in-progress, and it is a bit mysterious when it decides to sync a file. However, I found no file contention issues and never lost data. The mesh.com web site has an amazing-looking Windows desktop-like UI, but it isn’t completely compatible with non-IE browsers. There is no iPhone web site, though m.mesh.com mostly works. Live Mesh even includes a Remote Desktop system that punches through firewalls and maintains the original desktop size. There are hints at future integration with Office Live and Skydrive, but no promises. The mesh API is supposed to be open and available soon (it is already based on the open FeedSync design), so it will be interesting to see what results of that. Available for Windows and Mac.
Syncplicity also lets you choose any file or directory and choose which machine gets what content. The sync status is easy to see, and the desktop app is small and fast. Files are synced instantly – so fast, in fact, that it might get synced while the file is in use, which can cause problems with some apps. You can access previous versions of files to revert changes, and deleted files are stored in the local computer’s trash bin. Syncplicity’s most unique feature is the ability to view and edit some files using web-based apps such as Zoho, Scribd, and Google Docs. This is really impressive, and I can’t wait to see more file types and web apps supported. The Syncplicity file management web site can be pretty slow, and appears to be all Flash-based. The iPhone-optimized site isn’t working right now, and though the generic mobile version m.syncp.com works fine, that site can also be slow. Available for Windows and Mac, with a Linux version in development.
Drop Box syncs just a single directory, but if you understand what a symlink is, you can add symlinks to any other directory on your system. This is not newbie-friendly, and you need to manually set this up on each machine, but for technically savvy users it’s not a big deal. Everything in the folder is synced to all machines, all or nothing. While this is a bit primitive compared to Live Mesh and Syncplicity, it works well, and is extremely fast. Drop Box checks for binary differential updates to files, and only syncs the bits that have changed. Like Syncplicity, you can access previous versions of files to revert changes. The web site is very fast, and works fine with all browsers. The iPhone site is a pleasure to use. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I still need to give Sugarsync a try, as it too looks interesting. Sugarsync offers a native iPhone app.
All of the solutions offer at least 2GB of free data storage, with various pricing plans for more data. Live Mesh is still completely free while in beta, and post-launch pricing has not been announced.
Overall, each sync solution is quite good, and well worth checking out. I used Live Mesh exclusively until it stopped connecting on my machines at work. Beta issue? Firewall change? Syncplicity has the potential to be great if they can make their web site faster and resolve file contention issues. Until then, I’ll be a satisfied user of Drop Box.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen InstallShield crash or hang when I try to install or uninstall a program on Windows XP. In many cases, I'll open Process Explorer, kill the hung process, and take a peek at the TEMP directory (in Windows\Temp). I usually find a dozen "temporary" copies of InstallShield files in there, so deleting everything in TEMP sometimes fixes the problem.
Tonight, I finally got around to installing a game that was sitting on my shelf for the past two years. When I ran its installer, InstallShield crashed with the useful message: Error Code: -5009 : 0x8002802b
Thanks, that's helpful. Luckily, a four-year old post on a the Macromedia forum revealed a fix: just nuke the C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield\Professional directory.
Now to scan the machine for SafeDisc and other malware…
Y'know, back in the old DOS days, you installed programs by typing:
c:\> md coolgame
c:\> copy a:\*.* c:\coolgame\*.*
And it always worked.
Like most laptops, my ThinkPad X40 has an ethernet port and built-in WiFi. My office at work supports both connection types, so theoretically, when I plug into the ethernet network, the laptop connects via ethernet, and when unplugged, it uses WiFi.
However, this was not the case for me. Instead, when both ethernet and WiFi connections were available, the laptop would randomly choose between the two at random intervals. Compounding the problem, the office WiFi connection requires the use of a VPN for security, whereas the ethernet network does not. That meant that periodically, the laptop would try to access the WiFi net without a VPN, and the ethernet network with VPN. Essentially, my network stability was hosed.
As it turns out, Windows XP has a feature that supports automatic network connection preferences. If you have multiple networks available, XP can automatically choose the fastest one, or choose one that you have manually set to a higher priority. The priority settings are kept in the "Interface metric" setting for each TCP/IP connection. Open the Network Connection control panel, right-click on a network connection, click "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)", click Properties, then click Advanced. At the bottom of the Advanced TCP/IP Settings dialog, there is a checkbox for "Automatic metric" and a settings box for "Interface metric".
On my laptop, both the ethernet and WiFi connections had the Interface metric set to 10, which told the laptop that both connections were of equal priority. According to Microsoft, Windows XP includes a set of default values for interface metrics, so the "Automatic metric" setting should work for most cases. In my case, I set both network adapters to Automatic, and my troubles went away.
I've seen a lot of creative and sometimes hair-brained schemes for publishing PowerPoint files to a web site. But if a timed sequence of static slides works for your presentation, a simple animated GIF is a cheap and easy way to go. The free ImageMagick command line tools make it straightforward.
convert" to convert the images to a pixel size suitable for your web site. Ex: convert -geometry 540 Slide*.PNGconvert -delay 1000 -loop 0 Slide*.PNG presentation.gifThat's it! Upload the GIF to your web site and add it to your page normally.
A few years ago, changing out hardware from underneath a Windows install was a sure way to ruin your OS. So when I received the parts for my new machine this week, I decided to try using various migration tools to get my data from the old machine to the new one.
Specifically, I used Microsoft's built-in Backup and Files and Settings Transfer Wizard tools to copy everything to a Linux network share, then restore to a fresh XP install. Surprisingly, these two tools managed to restore more than 90% of my original machine to the new install. And if I hadn't spent an hour or so playing with the new machine, I probably wouldn't have noticed just how screwed up my new system was, and how impossible it was to fix the restored config. The Backup app was interesting, and worth looking at again some day, but I'll never use the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard again.
I decided to take a chance and do a straight image from the old hard drive to the new one. I used the amazing Linux-based gparted live CD, and with a little prep work, everything worked out perfectly. Here's how I did it:
I should note that I had to reauthorize the Connected Online Backup software, as well as authorize the new computer in iTunes. Which reminds me, I should also deauthorize iTunes in the old computer. I also presume that Windows Media DRM is probably out of whack, but I don't have (nor plan to have) any Windows Media DRM files.
Every time I fire up gparted, I get more impressed with it. It is a must-have boot CD. And it makes me smile to know that the best way to migrate a Windows install is with a Linux boot disk. 
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
Last year, I highly recommended Copernic Desktop Search [copernicdesktopsearch, copernic2] over all the other desktop search apps that I tested. I was using CDS version 1.7. CDS was faster, easier to use, and had a lower system impact than the rest.
Unfortunately, Copernic has upgraded CDS to "Version 2," and it's a poor step backwards. It's still free, and I hate to complain about free software, but…
CDS 2 is slower than 1.7, adds unneeded features, and above all, has some horrible user interface quirks. Specifically, the worst feature is their new "Search web" link on the desktop search box. If you mouse over this link, which you must do in order to choose a search category, the link becomes permanently active, causing all desktop searches to become web searches instead. You can't deselect this link! Or even disable it! This, of course, makes CDS 2.0 effectively useless for desktop search. Sure, you could theoretically press Win-C to open the CDS desktop app and enter your search there, but unlike CDS 1.7, Win-C no longer give the app input focus. This means that you need to use the mouse to click to enter your search term. Ridiculous!
Last year, Copernic searched the net for published recommendations, found mine, and posted an excerpt on their web site. I would like to now publicly recommend that users avoid CDS 2.0, and request Copernic to remove my recommendation.
That said, I still use and recommend CDS version 1.7. If you scour the net, you'll find CDS 1.7 on oldversion.com. Just don't upgrade when prompted. 
If you use the Opera [opera-idstring, opera, badoperasites, opera9] web browser (er, you are using Opera, right?), check out this integrated spell checker script called OSpell. It uses Opera's integrated JavaScript to enable in-place spell checking in web text boxes. Very nice!
But alas, like the official Opera spell checker, it does not have an "Ignore All" feature, at least so far as I can tell.
MyEntunnel is a cool app for tunneling SSH ![[WikiPedia]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
via Windows. I use it primarily to proxy IM connections from work to my Linux server at home. Today, with some help from StickyC, I set it up to tunnel VNC . Here are the settings.
My VNC server is running on the same Linux box as the SSH server. So in the "Local:" pane of the Tunnels tab of MyEntunnel, I added: 5901:127.0.0.1:5901. By default, VNC runs on ports 5901 and up, so this line means forward port 5901 from the machine running the SSH server to port 5901 on the machine running MyEntunnel. After adding this line, I restarted the tunnel by clicking the "Disconnect", then "Reconnect" button. Finally, when I launched the VNC client on my Windows machine, I told it to connect to 127.0.0.1:1. This means connect to the first VNC server on the local machine. The first VNC server maps to port 5901, which is what MyEntunnel forwards to the SSH server, where the real VNC server resides.
When I was comparing Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 [virtualpc2007, virtualpcadditions] with the free VMWare Player virtual machine, I lamented having to decide between a polished, easy-to-use solution versus a powerful, yet clunky solution. But then I remembered that InnoTek recently made their VirtualBox virtual machine freely available for Linux and Windows hosts. I compared VirtualBox to Virtual PC 2007 and VMWare Player on my P4 Prescott machine, and with my totally unscientific asseement, I am quite impressed.
I installed the SimplyMEPIS and ZenWalk Linux distros under each virtual machine. Here are some usage notes for each:
DefaultDepth to be 16 instead of 24. Both MEPIS and ZenWalk detected VMWare and installed the VMWare video driver. Microsoft's Linux Additions video drivers didn't work properly in either distro.Inside of each distro's VM, I downloaded and compiled ppower, a compact and solid app used to control X10 serial devices. I timed the compilation on all three VMs. VirtualBox and VMWare came in at a dead heat, but both were nearly twice as fast as Virtual PC.
All in all, VirtualBox is almost as easy to use as Virtual PC 2007, but with better performance. It is my go-to virtual machine now.
Side Note: I repeatedly tried to download Parallels Workstation as another VM to use for comparison, but their web site is a disaster. It took several days before their user registration page would give me a trial code, but the link to download the product itself hasn't worked in weeks. I actually had to Google to find their user forum, as a link on their own site was nowhere to be found.
FolderShare is a neat peer-to-peer file sharing application that was recently acquired by Microsoft. It sits in your system tray and silently synchronizes a specific folder on one computer to a folder on some other computers. Some co-workers and I are giving a talk tomorrow, and we decided to use FolderShare to sync the talk assets. Overall, it worked, but not without a couple of issues.
The first thing we noticed was that by default, FolderShare allows you to access your entire computer via a password-protected web page. I was pretty horrified to discover that only a simple password was between my files and the rest of the world (remember, this skips through your firewall). To disable this, you need to open the FolderShare Settings dialog and uncheck the "Allow web downloads from this computer" checkbox on the Transfers tab. It also seems wise to uncheck the "Run FolderShare when your computer starts" checkbox.
Second, FolderShare is not a revision control system. If two people open the same file on two computers, FolderShare will resolve the difference by automatically renaming the files using the computer name and user name. This is not what you might expect, and will screw up any file dependencies you might have in a project. As a matter of fact, when working with PowerPoint files, FolderShare seems intent on re-syncing the file each time it is opened, whether you changed the file or not.
Finally, bandwidth is an issue. If three people (and three computers) are sharing a folder, and one of them has slower bandwidth, the slow computer will take longer to catch up to file changes. Eventually, it will get enough out of sync that FolderShare will start renaming files as if they were edited by two different people (see above).
All in all, peer-to-peer document sharing via FolderShare worked pretty well, though we did have a panic moment when we noticed 7 copies of our talk in the folder tonight. I ended up turning off FolderShare, fixing the PPT file, copying the "master" to a new directory in the folder, and restarting FolderShare. After tomorrow, I'll be uninstalling it.
I've been using online backup services since 1999. I realized that I had enough data in Quicken that losing it would be a painful experience. I also realized that I wasn't sure if I could trust local backup media, like ZIP disks (back then) and CD-Rs, especially if there was a fire or flood at the house.
I started with backup.com (aka "@Backup"), as it was recommended by Intuit at the time. The fee was $29 per year for 30MB of data backup. In 1999, that was plenty of space for my Quicken files and other documents. I even used the recovery service once to pull down an older version of a file. However, by 2002, I noticed that the client app for backup.com was reporting connection failures to their backup server. Shortly thereafter, I canceled the service, and chose another provider.
I learned a couple of things from the experience. First, online backups can be convenient and unobtrusive. Second, having multiple backup revisions is great, as you can go back in time in case you screw up an important file. Finally, an online backup service needs to be trustworthy and reliable. If they ever show signs of unreliability, grab your data and move on.
After dumping backup.com, I signed up with Connected Backup. I've been using Connected ever since. Connected was recently acquired by Iron Mountain, the big off-site records company. Connected stores numerous revisions of each file for several months, and using their slow but effective client app, you can be very specific about which files to back up and when to do it. I pay $99/year for 500MB of backup space, which is enough to cover my ever expanding Quicken data and documents folder, and I have backups scheduled to run once a day.
However, many new online backup services have appeared recently, promising low prices, tons of backup storage, and real-time backups. Carbonite is the best of the of the bunch. For $49 a year, Carbonite will backup an unlimited amount of data, including your entire computer if you want. Whenever a file changes, it is immediately backed up automatically. A downside is that only the most recent revision of a file is backed up - you can't go back in time like you can with Connected. And a minor irritant is that backup inclusions and exclusions are done via Windows Explorer instead of a central backup application. So if you want to know if a file is going to be backed up, you need to navigate to the file itself in Windows and look for a colored "dot" on the file icon. That all said, I use the Carbonite service in addition to Connected, and love it. The convenience is outstanding. If you don't need to have multiple revisions of files backed up, Carbonite is the online back service to use.
Over the coming year, I anticipate services like Connected and Carbonite to be more competitive with each other. Hopefully, they'll each offer unlimited storage, but with multiple file revisions. If that happens, I'll be able to rely on just one service instead of two. But until then, consider me nicely backed up off-site.
The more I play with Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007 [virtualpc2007, virtualpcadditions], the more I appreciate the effort from MS, and the more I become disappointed with the Linux guest OS performance on my P4 Prescott-based WinXP machine.
I installed the SimplyMEPIS Linux distro in Virtual PC 2007, and tried to get the performance up to a level comparable to VMWare. Microsoft makes "Virtual Machine Additions for Linux" available for Virtual Server 2005, so I tried them in Virtual PC 2007.
The VM Additions are provided in RPM format, but MEPIS uses deb packages. To install the VM Addition RPMs, you'll need the app alien, which is included in MEPIS, as well as the kernel headers package. You'll also want to install the rcconf package.
Once you get the iso from MS, mount it and copy the files to a local folder. Do not run the vmadd-install.run script - most of the VM Additions are useless in Virtual PC. Instead, just install the kernel and X11 packages by opening a root terminal, and typing:
alien -icv vmadd-kernel-module-0.0.1-1.i386.rpm
alien -icv vmadd-kernel-x11-0.0.1-1.i386.rpm
/etc/init.d/vmadd start
You'll see an error regarding chkconfig, which is not included on debian-based distros. Just run lcconf, find vmadd in the list, and select it to run at startup.
Unfortunately, the VM Additions don't seem to have much a performance effect at all. As a matter of fact, the X11 driver is incompatible with recent versions of Xorg, including the one in MEPIS. The mouse driver works, if you copy it from /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/input/mouse_drv.o to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input/mouse_drv.so, but it seems hardly worth the effort.
One thing that does help performance, however, is changing the Linux clock timing. In MEPIS, I was getting a bunch of weird double-character typing issues, as well as network stalls. Adding the parameter clock=pit to the kernel boot line in grub (or lilo) fixed both issues.
In conclusion, if you want a high performance Virtual Machine on a single core host, look elsewhere. However, if stability and ease of use are more important than speed, Virtual PC 2007 is a very nicely polished VM to try. Just don't bother installing the VM Additions for Linux.
I'd love to know how it runs on a dual core machine.
Microsoft just released Virtual PC 2007 as a free download. Like VMWare , Virtual PC 2007 lets you install several operating systems on one PC at the same time. I decided to try it out today and compare it to VMWare's free VMWare Player.
VPC07 installs nicely, and is unobtrusive. Unlike VMWare, it doesn't seem to install any background services. (VMWare runs four services in the background whether you use a VM or not.) Configuration was simple and typical Microsoft - just a basic properties dialog, and no VMWare-style text file edits. Booting from an iso is extremely straightforward.
VPC07 is tailored to run variants of Windows, but I decided to try a few versions of Linux instead, including Kubuntu, SimplyMEPIS, ZenWalk, and Puppy Linux. MEPIS and Puppy ran perfectly on the first try, but Kubuntu and ZenWalk both needed the DefaultDepth value in xorg.conf to be changed from 24 to 16. Apparently, VPC07 emulates the S3 Trio video chipset, but does not support 24-bit color. This fakes out some video auto-detection scripts.
Unlike VMWare Player, VPC07 allows you to switch between windowed mode and full screen. However, sometimes my WinXP start menu bar would pop up on top of full screen virtual sessions. And as with other full screen apps that change the video resolution (i.e. games), all of my WinXP desktop windows and icons were moved and resized.
In all cases, Linux ran noticably slower under VPC07 than VMWare. And the heavier the desktop, the slower it ran. KDE-based desktops like Kubuntu and MEPIS were the slowest, with the XFCE-based ZenWalk being faster, and Puppy's tiny JWM running at nearly native speed.
Believe it or not, Microsoft actually provides some accelerated drivers for Linux virtual machines, but they're a hassle to get. You need to visit http://connect.microsoft.com, drill through the menus until you find the Virtual Machine Additions for Linux beta (why don't they just call them "drivers"?). This link might work: https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=154. The download process is almost hysterical. Instead of providing the drivers in a tarball, they are packaged in an iso file. But instead of allowing you to download the iso, you need to download a .msi installer that installs the iso to your Program Files directory. But you can't actually download the .msi file without using Internet Explorer, which in turn installs the Microsoft ActiveX Downloader program! After all of that hassle, you'll eventually discover that the Microsoft Linux drivers are only tested on certain versions of Fedora and OpenSUSE. I have yet to make them work.
Note that this hassle is not needed if you are using a variant of Windows instead of Linux.
Virtual PC 2007 actually has a lot of potential. I love that it is smaller and easier to use than VMWare. If they can fix the performance issues with Linux, I'll never use VMWare again. But of course, why would Microsoft fix Linux performance issues?
I never turn my WinXP machine off. Instead, I have it set to automatically go to "System Standby" mode after 1 hour of no activity. When I'm done using the machine, I just Log Off and let it go to Standby. When I return (the next day, for example), I just press Enter, wait a few seconds for the machine to "wake up," then Log In.
Recently, I noticed that the machine was becoming very sluggish and unresponsive for a few minutes after I logged in. Using Process Explorer, I saw that a service called "wuauclt.exe" was using 50% of the CPU, which in my Hyperthreaded machine is basically 100% of half the CPU (know what I mean?). The culprit service is part of the automatic Windows Update system. But since I've been using Windows Update for years, why the new slowdown?
After a few searches on the net, I found the probable reason. As it turns out, somehow over the past few weeks (months?) of automatic updates from Windows Update, a new update system called "Microsoft Update" was installed. Microsoft Update not only updates Windows, but also checks on various other Microsoft apps such as MS Office. Apparently, the damned thing does a full system scan for updates every time you log in. Brilliant user experience, no?
Fortunately, it appears to be easy to disable Microsoft Update and return to Windows Update. Just head to http://update.microsoft.com, click on the "Change settings" link, and check the "Disable Microsoft Update" checkbox.
Microsoft seems to acknowledge this problem, and promises a fix in the next service pack: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916089
So long McAfee [revertmcafee, mcafeepopmail], I'm done with your constant "Upgrade Now!" nag windows, bloated processes, and slow performance. I just bought NOD32 from eset.
I did a lot of research on Anti-Virus software, and was surprised to see NOD32 appear at the top of many comparisons. I had never heard of NOD32 or eset until I did my research, but with all of the positive reviews, I decided to install their 30-day trial.
NOD32 is excellent. It only uses about 25MB of RAM, yet handles a full suite of background scanning, including file system, network traffic, MS Office documents, and email. The right-click on-demand file scanner works almost instantaneously, and the virus signature files are not only updated automatically daily, they are frequently updated two or three times a day.
Some reviews mentioned that NOD32 has a clumsy user interface, though I found it to be clean and simple to use. But best of all, NOD32 has a very low impact on system performance, unlike McAfee or the other behemoth, Norton. What a relief to find a good Anti-Virus app.
Note: Like another one of my favorite apps, Servant Salamander, NOD32 appears to be developed in Eastern Europe. Is this the new home of fast, solid Windows software?
For the past 8 months or so, all of the Microsoft Office Security Updates that have come through the Windows Update system have failed to install on my home WinXP machine. I couldn't find any solution to the problem in the Microsoft Knowledge Base, so I've been checking the "don't ask me to install these updates again" button on Windows Update and forgetting about the security updates.
Now that the Office security issues are started to stack up, I decided to find the problem. Since the error messages from Windows Update are totally cryptic, I decided to use the Office Update system on the Microsoft Office web site. Even though it appears to use a different update system, the updates still failed to install. However, the web site helpfully listed about 10 possible reasons for failure, with the last reason in the list mentioning something about a missing registry key.
Sure enough, the Office Update web site links to Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 884298, which describes a single registry key string that simply contains the path to the Office install CD location.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\
Delivery\SourceEngine\Downloads\
90000409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9\Sources\
90110409-6000-11D3-8CFE-0150048383C9\PathMy system didn't have this key, which caused the Office updates to fail. After I added the key to my registry, the updates succeeded. As a matter of fact, I also (inadvertently) found out that if you add the key and then set the key value to a random path, the updates still work successfully.
I have no idea why the key was missing on my system, but you'd think with all of the sophistication of the Windows Update system, they could have just fixed this for me automatically, rather than punt with a error.
Until now, I hadn't used Sketchup, the 3D design software, since they were bought by Google. The last time I tried to use it, I didn't quite grok the "shaping" metaphors they use. But I recently needed to use some easy CAD software, and I after seeing some nice diagrams, decided to give Sketchup another shot.
Wow, once you let go of the polygon metaphor and start thinking in terms of sculpting shapes, Sketchup becomes much more intuitive. This simple drawing of a workbench for my garage took me only about 15 minutes or so to create.
I have a lot more to learn about using Sketchup, but I'm having fun using it so far. Hopefully, Google's investment will make this a more Windows-friendly app. And hey, how about a Linux version?
Version 9 of the best web browser on earth, Opera, is available for download. Download it. Use it. You'll never use another browser again.
After using and developing for Internet Explorer and Netscape for years, as well as using Mozilla, FireFox, Konqueror, dillo, and the IE 7 Beta, there is simply no comparison to the speed, stability, compatibility, security, and polish in Opera. Opera is top quality software for all platforms.
Why haven't you downloaded Opera yet?
Wow, I thought blocked email was the only problem I had with the McAfee VirusScan 11, but there are a few other kinks they need to work out. I decided to revert to VirusScan 10 for a few reasons:
Thanks to some clever folks on the McAfee support forums, I found that I could download and reinstall VirusScan 10 by using the UK McAfee site at http://uk.mcafee.com. Why the UK site is easier to use than the US site is beyond me.
VirusScan 10 is a very well done security app, and I'm grateful that Comcast offers this software for free. I can only hope that McAfee figures that out, and brings VirusScan 11 back to a manageable state.
I hate Windows Explorer. Back on Windows 3.1, Microsoft included a serviceable GUI clone of the legendary DOS file manager, Norton Commander. But with the advent of Windows 95, the simple, customizable, two-column File Manager was ditched in favor of Mac-style folder windows. This sucks for a myriad of reasons, and maybe one day I'll write a 5000 word essay on the subject. Suffice to say, I've been eager to find a better file manager.
And I found it.
As I'm not the only computer operator seeking a file manager that actually helps me manage files, there are many Explorer substitutes available. Most of them are descendants of the Norton Commander (NC) and open-source clone Midnight Commander (MC) design, which I love, and I tried a ton of them. The best of the lot, by a long shot, is Servant Salamander.
Servant Salamander is a fast Win32-native app that is instantly usable and easy to configure. It uses a mere 8MB of RAM, and has none of the flashy UI and embedded web browser garbage that pollutes so many modern Windows apps. All of the key bindings you would expect from NC and MC are in place, plus a bunch that should have been there to begin with. Forget the mouse, as you can run the entire app from the keyboard. Need to view a file? Press F3. Need to copy it? Press F5. View another drive? Alt-F1. Etc. And once you launch the Servant, you'll never need to open Explorer again.
If you want to try (and buy!) Servant Salamander, download the latest version 2.5 release with the file-viewer add-on. And welcome yourself back to the days of happy computing.
As a Comcast subscriber, I can use McAfee virus scanning and security products for free. This is a great idea from Comcast, and I appreciate having the usually reliable McAfee software. It sure beats the clunky and intrusive Norton security software.
This week, the McAfee tray app began pestering me about a major upgrade. Yesterday, I installed the free upgrade (VirusScan 11), and everything went smoothly.
Except that I stopped receiving email.
I use Outlook to access my email via POP3, rather than IMAP, because Outlook's IMAP support stinks. I emailed my email host provider to see if they were having issues, and they mentioned that they had several calls from people who had just upgraded McAfee. It appears that the upgraded McAfee VirusScan 11 decided to block all of our incoming POP3 email.
Fortunately, my mail provider handles virus scanning already, so I opened the new McAfee security manager app and disabled the email virus scanning option. And whaddya know, I started receiving email again.
I hate to complain about free software, but… how annoying.
There is some pretty innovative software showing up on the Mac these days. An app that caught my eye today is WriteRoom from Hog Bay Software. WriteRoom is a full-screen text editor with… nothing else. Just a blank screen and your text, no OS distractions. Excellent!
Alas, I use Windows and Linux, not MacOS. Fortunately, there is an easy way to imitate WriteRoom in Microsoft Word 2003 on WinXP. Just fire up Word, press Alt-V, then U, and voila, you're running Word in full-screen mode. As an added bonus, there is a special full-screen toolbar that you can customize or leave blank as you see fit. Interestingly, if I also open the options dialog and change the default Word color scheme to be white text on a blue background (a la the classic WordPerfect for DOS), I find it even easier to concentrate and write. Additionally, I mapped the F11 key to the View/ToggleFull function, which is the same key used for switching to and from full-screen mode in Internet Explorer and Opera [opera-idstring, opera, badoperasites, opera9].
Funny that this feature has been in MS Word all along, but it took an innovative developer on the Mac to make me aware of it.
My WinXP machine suddenly starting displaying random patterns of video garbage Saturday, which I figured was the sure sign of a crapped out video card. Weird, since I haven't had a video card go bad since the Vesa Local Bus days. The computer must have known I was passing by Fry's that day.
Rather than buy a new card, I grabbed an extra one out of the closet (don't ask). The card that fried was an NVidia 5700 Ultra, and I replaced it with an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. In benchmarks, the Radeon is more powerful than the 5700, but check out how much heatsink is required to passively (and silently) cool these things:
The NVidia is on the left and the Radeon is on the right. The GPU on the Radeon is physically about a quarter the size of the NVidia GPU and doesn't require an extra power connector. My motherboard temperature dropped nearly 3 degrees since I installed that card. (Yep, that's a Zalman heat pipe system on the NVidia card.)
For some reason, I can't see the machine POST when the card is connected to my Apple Cinema 20" monitor. That kinda sucks, so I'll need to figure out what's going on with that.
I replaced a failing hard drive in Sony Vaio Z1VA . In retrospect, it was pretty straightforward, but here are some tips that tripped me up:
boot.ini file to tell WinXP to boot from the first partition. Looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
Although Opera [opera-idstring, opera, badoperasites, opera9] is my primary browser, I've found some sites that don't work well with it. I'll keep a running list here:
UPDATE: See comments…
I used the MSN Desktop Search for several months on my work machine. I've found that a desktop search app is an invaluable resource in this day and age of gigabytes of data. I can't live without search now.
MSN Desktop Search has a lot of great features, but also several annoyances. For me, I found that it seemed to run somewhat aggressively in the background with several processes, and I couldn't stand that it wouldn't remember its window position from a previous search. The UI a little clumsy all around, and the preview window is quite slow. All in all, it is a very nice app, but not nearly as elegant as Copernic Desktop Search.
Copernic is known for their nice search engine aggregator, but blog posts from Microserfs Omar and Steve turned me on to Copernic's awesome desktop search app.
Copernic Desktop Search is what a Windows app should be. Compact, single process, unobtrusive, and highly useful. The search results from Copernic are as fast and accurate as MSN, but they are much easier to digest with a clean presentation and UI. The auto-preview window is also fast and accurate. And as a nice touch, I can run it on my laptop as it has a setting to pause indexing when running on battery power.
Did mention that Copernic is free?
In his PC Magazine column, John Dvorak mentioned how the Opera web browser [opera-idstring, opera, badoperasites, opera9] sends a fake browser ID to web sites. Rather than identifying itself as Opera, it pretends to be Internet Explorer 6. The reason is because of poor (and on one occasion, apparently malicious) web site authoring. Some site authors are unaware of Opera, and assume that if the browser isn't Internet Explorer or Netscape, then the web page won't render correctly. This is obviously quite untrue, but the real bummer here is that no one really knows how many people are using the Opera browser, as it rarely appears in web server logs as itself.
Although this is the default setting, Opera users can choose to set the ID back to Opera, or even choose to impersonate Mozilla. I set it back to Opera, and noticed something: some web sites looked better. In particular Yahoo Groups had some funky font faces and sizes when Opera spoofs IE, but looks excellent when it IDs itself as Opera.
I'll be leaving the browser ID setting as Opera itself.
No, not the real Opera, I mean the incredible Opera Web Browser. I downloaded Opera 8.5x a couple of days ago to check the CSS support on MikeyP.com, and I haven't stopped using it since.
Several years ago (1997?), I remember downloading an early version of Opera. At the time, I was blown away by how fast it rendered pages. I stopped using it, however, because it was so standards compliant that it didn't render common "broken" pages designed for Netscape and Internet Explorer.
Times have changed. Not only are internet standards more… standard, but Opera is at the forefront of compatibility. Opera simply runs faster and smaller than both Internet Explorer and Firefox, with tons of extensible customization. Seriously, Firefox users, I'm talking to you.
Opera is changing the way I use the internet. I'm that impressed. I can't wait for version 9, which has integrated BitTorrent and (finally!) support for NTLM Windows Authentication.
BTW, I'm able to switch back and forth between browsers without much hassle thanks to the LinkStash bookmark manager. I just tell it to launch bookmarks in whatever browser I'm using, and I'm off and running. I was bummed to see that there weren't custom LinkStash buttons for Opera, but I quickly discovered how easy it was to add any kind of custom buttons. This web site even makes them for you: The Opera Custom Button & Command Creator.
Here are the button URLs for LinkStash (provide it was installed in C:\Program Files\LinkStash). Opera users can just click the links:
More great Opera info lives at the Opera Wiki
I hardly ever use my DVD-R drive except when I need to rip some music, install software, or archive some stuff. So imagine my surprise when I popped a disk in the drive this weekend only to see… nothing. I opened the "My Computer" folder on WinXP and the drive wasn't even there. Looking at the Device Drivers list in the system panel, I noticed that the DVD drive had a little exclamation point graphic, along with the following error:
Windows successfully loaded the device driver for this hardware but cannot find the hardware device. (Code 41)
A quick Google of the error message took me to the Microsoft Knowledge Base, which had instructions for a simple fix. The fix involves deleting two entries in the Windows Registry. Simple enough, but I wondered how those errant registry entries could have gotten there in the first place.
Then I fired up Apple's iTunes this evening, and got this error dialog:
It reads: The registry settings used by the iTunes drivers for importing and burning CDs and DVDs are missing. This can happen as a result of installing other CD burning software. Please reinstall iTunes.
Uhhh, no thanks Apple, I'm quite tired of installing a new version of iTunes every freakin' week. Looks like it's time to check out Anapod Explorer again…
I bought a 20" Apple Cinema Display yesterday to replace my excellent-yet-aging SGI 1600SW flat panel monitor. The Cinema is flawless. It is dead silent (no annoying buzzing like my Dell screens at work), and there aren't any defective pixels that I've noticed so far. And it's right sexy!
Some notes:
The monitor on my main WinXP machine at home is a Silicon Graphics 1600SW. This was the first high-end widescreen monitor available, and also the first LCD monitor that had a refresh rate fast enough for gaming. At its native resolution of 1600×1024, the 17" diagonal screen keeps text somewhat tiny, but very readable. I think I paid $1200+ for this thing five years ago, and it has been worth every cent. Unfortunately, it has developed an constant "buzzing" sound, to the point of becoming the loudest component in my office. It isn't screaming by any means, but in a quiet office, it is pretty darned annoying.
I've been looking at replacing the 1600SW with a 20" widescreen LCD from Apple or Dell. Both make LCDs with the same source panel, but they have very different electronics and light sources. With the Dell costing about half the price of the Apple, you'd think it would be a no-brainer… until you visit the Dell support forums. Lots of people are complaining that the Dells squeal loudly. The Apples, on the other hand, are reportedly dead silent.
Pending a surprise announcement at MacWorld this week, I know which screen I'm going to buy.
Okay, it may only be exciting if you're a Microsoft Excel [excelpivottables, excel12blog] geek like me, but the Microserfs working on Excel 12 have been actively blogging about their progress at http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/default.aspx. Reading their posts makes me anxious to get my hands on the beta right now. Better pivot table formatting, unlimited conditional cell formatting, proper list support, better multi-user integration, and above all, good-looking graphs. Office 12 is looking to be the biggest productivity software upgrade to come along since Office 95. I can't wait!
ThinkPads [thinkpadlenovoupdates, thinkpadreference, thinkpadx40issues] come pre-installed with a nifty little tray app called Access IBM Message Center. It periodically alerts users when important ThinkPad updates are available. Until this week, I hadn't received any notifications since Lenovo [lenovodeal, thinkpadlenovoupdates] officially took over the ThinkPad product line from IBM.
This week, the Message Center icon lit up with a notification that there was an important update for the Intel WiFi drivers. When I clicked the update link, the new Lenovo ThinkPad web site prompted me to launch the ThinkVantage Software Installer application. The Software Installer synced up with an updater web service and found a slew of new updates for my ThinkPad, ranging from device drivers, app software, and even a new BIOS. With a single hiccup (I had to run the app twice to get all downloads), the ThinkVantage installer automatically updated everything flawlessly.
Since I installed the updates, my ThinkPad has felt more responsive than before, and wireless connections are much more stable. I'm thrilled to see Lenovo providing the same amount of active support that made IBM ThinkPads legendary.
Dear Apple,
Your Quicktime Player for Windows sucks.
Each time I upgrade iTunes, the Quicktime Player insists on installing a useless tray icon process, even though I disabled it in my previous configuration.
Randomly, the Quicktime Player pops a dialog asking me to "upgrade" to a "Pro" version of Quicktime. Why on earth would I want a "Pro" movie player application?
Frequently, when I launch the Quicktime Player app, a dialog pops up that looks like this:
This must be the least-informative error message ever created. Each button option does absolutely nothing but cause this dialog to reappear. Constantly. Repeatedly. Endlessly. The only way to get rid of this useless and obnoxious dialog is to kill the Quicktime process and delete every file in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\QuickTime. I write-protected the file QuickTimeFavorites.qtr prevent this error in the future. Fortunately, the Quicktime Player application is too dumb to realize this.
Did I mention that the excellent open-source media player mplayer plays Quicktime files fine? Without errors? Without nagging upgrade dialogs?
Love,
MikeyP
Microsoft Excel is an incredibly powerful and complicated piece of software. Even though I use Excel daily for a myriad of purposes, I'm still constantly learning new features and tricks.
O'Rielly's Windows Dev Center recently published a helpful article about Using Pivot Tables in Excel. The article is an excerpt from Excel: The Missing Manual , which, judging by the quality of the article, I must now purchase.
Who needs an external USB drive enclosure when you can have this?
Barebones USB-IDE Cable with Power Adapter
Update: Now I see that there are a few of these available.
As much as I like my Thinkpad X40 [thinkpadlenovoupdates, thinkpadreference, thinkpadx40issues] laptop (from IBM, not Lenovo), the quality just doesn't seem as good as my old Thinkpad X24. As I find various issues with the X40 that I don't like, I'll add them to the list below.
more to come…
Today I replaced a 3.5" floppy drive, a DVD-ROM drive, and a CD-RW drive in my WinXP machine with a single drive: the NEC DVD-RW ND-3520A. This drive reads and burns all current formats of DVD and CD media. I am able to rip entire albums (such as The Swinging Guitar of Tal Farlow ) to WMA Lossless files in less than 3 minutes.
Since WinXP has no built-in DVD writing software, I downloaded some excellent free software called CDBurnerXP Pro. So far, it has been reliable, easy to use, and fast.
Interesting note: The CPU temperature in my PC dropped ~5 degrees after removing all of the old drives. I assume this is because of better air flow and fewer heat-generating devices.
When I first tried to rip a DVD to an AVI about 5 years ago, I had to write a script that would run nearly a dozen utilities in a sequenced process. It would take so long to complete the process that I would leave the script running overnight, and hope that no errors occured.
DVD ripping software sure has come a long way since then. PalmFocus has an article about ripping movies using software called FairUse. FairUse is a simple wizard-style app that converted a DVD of mine to a small AVI file in about as much time as it took to actually watch the entire movie.
Being able to watch my DVD collection on my Tapwave Zodiac using the TCPMP media player is a really cool experience. Hats off to the developers of FairUse and TCPMP.
If you're like me and have tens of thousands of emails in Microsoft Outlook, you've noticed that the "Find" function in Outlook is extremely slow. This lead me to try out an Outlook add-in called Lookout that was available on Microsoft's Sandbox site. Lookout was so fast and effective that I decided to take a look at a whole-computer search utility.
Freely downloadable Search Toolbars have sprung up all over the place. I decide to try Google Desktop Search, Yahoo Desktop Search, and the new MSN Toolbar.
Google Desktop Search installs in the Windows deskbar and does a very fast job of searching documents and emails, but gives you search results in a web browser. This felt out of place on the desktop - it somehow seems creepy to see your local information presented exactly as if you found it on the internet. The browser-based approach also forced me to click to open each resulting doc to make sure it was what I was looking for.
Yahoo Desktop Search is very versatile with fast search results and full preview capability, but it has a clumsy UI and stability issues that caused it to hang sometimes. This really gets in the way of trying to do a fast and convenient search.
The Windows Desktop Search included with MSN Toolbar is excellent, and is developed by the same team that developed Lookout. It integrates perfectly with the Windows desktop, giving you instant search-as-you-type results in a docked toolbar, and more detailed results with a preview window if you choose. All Microsoft Office document formats can be previewed, as well as emails and images. Note that I disabled the MSN Toolbar for Internet Explorer, as I prefer Google's IE toolbar instead.
I really thought it would be a close competition between the 3 search engines from these internet giants, but no one comes close to the power, speed, and perfect Windows integration of the MSN Toolbar.
Did you catch the news that Dell is rebranding the slick and tiny Samsung Q30 as the new Dell X1? 2.5 pounds, 1280×768 12" widescreen, and 6+ hours of battery life. If the workmanship is better than the typical cheapo Dell laptop, this thing could be a nice alternative to the ultraportable Thinkpad X40 (which I have).
If you run a recent version of MS Outlook like Outlook 2003, you may have noticed a security dialog like this:
This dialog prevents unsigned apps like malware and worms from accessing your address book and from sending email without your explicit permission.
Programs like Chapura's PocketMirror need to access Outlook's data in order to sync it with your PalmOS handheld, so to prevent this dialog from appearing, apps like PocketMirror need to be signed or needs to use the correct API. But instead of signing their code, Chapura added an extremely nasty hack in PocketMirror 3.0 by which the app takes control of your cursor, relocates it to the on-screen security dialog and forces a click on the 'Yes' button. This is really bad. You basically can't user your computer while a HotSync is happening because the app will take your cursor and start clicking without you - even in the wrong window. This is so annoying and non-user friendly that I've actually considered switching to the despised IntelliSync, or even ditching PalmOS entirely in favor of Windows Mobile and ActiveSync. Heck, I'd like to see if Chapura's PocketMirror Pro product has the same issue, but they don't offer a downloadable trial version, or even an upgrade incentive for users of the standard version. Way to botch the marketing there, Chapura.
Fortunately, Chapura has finally released an update that seems to mostly, but not entirely, fix this issue. PocketMirror 3.1.7 syncs properly without showing the Outlook security dialog and without taking control of the cursor. Let's just hope they did this correctly (with signed code or proper API usage) rather than another hack.
When shopping for a ThinkPad, IBM's web site can be a bit unwieldy, especially if you want to compare two models of the same series. For example, IBM makes almost 40 versions of the X40, and many are different in very subtle ways.
Luckily, there is a better way to shop. Head to IBM's 'notebooks literature' page at ibm.com, and download the PDF file tabbook.pdf. It lists every current ThinkPad model side-by-side with detailed specs and even the release date. Perfect!
Thanks to Bill at http://www.thinkpads.com for posting a copy of tabbook.pdf on his site.
The pervasive automatic spell-checking in Microsoft's Office product line has had the net effect of making me a lazy… and lousy… speller. That can be a problem when I enter text in a system like my blog, which uses an HTML textarea element for input.
Fortunately, there is a really nice spell-checker plug-in for Internet Explorer called ieSpell. When you right-click on a text field, it adds a simple menu item that allows you to check the spelling in the field. It works with the custom.dic dictionary used by MS Office, and you can configure it to skip word patterns like WikiWords (aka CamelCase ).
Best of all, you can't beat the price: free for individual use (preferably with a donation).
UPDATE: Looks like the new Google Toolbar beta 3 has a built-in spell-checker.
Seems like I'm not the only one who thinks the Lenovo deal to buy IBM's computer business is a bad thing for ThinkPad fans and laptop users in general. James Gaskin at http://www.ITWorld.com describes the deal by saying 'management stupidity has no boundaries'. Bill Howard at PC Magazine is ever so slightly more hopeful, but still thinks the ThinkPad R&D team might start heading for the door, or at least Austin.
Maybe this idea from Gaskin is better late than never, '…let's go to Armonk and whack two of every three executives with a pink slip and see if the PC division can make a profit now. Bet it will."
When the Help item first appeared on the Windows Start Menu back in Win95 or Win98, is was a complete joke for the majority of us who actually knew how to use a computer. Ever since then, I've never bothered to click on the Help item, and have usually used PowerToys to make it go away.
It turns out, the Help and Support Center menu item in Windows XP Pro SP2 is actually useful! Pretty much everything you need to know about administrating the system is available there. Its a little like having an abridged MS Knowledge Base pre-installed on your local machine.
My favorite find in the Help and Support Center? Click on the System administration link, then click on the link for Tools in the 'See Also' section. There you'll find a sweet reference for cmd, the surprisingly robust and scriptable Windows command prompt. BATCH lives!
As the Sandisk SD WiFi cards are sold out everywhere (unless you want to pay a premium price), I've been experimenting with Bluetooth as a connectivity option on the Tapwave Zodiac.
I have a D-Link DBT-120(rev. B4) Bluetooth dongle that, as with all Bluetooth dongles, comes with drivers from Widcomm (now Broadcom). To allow the Zodiac or any other device to access the internet via the Bluetooth dongle, all you need to do is enable Internet Connection Sharing in WinXP on your primary LAN connection, then enable Network Access for Bluetooth devices in the Widcomm drivers. Easy enough, well-documented on the net, and when it works, it works well.
But it doesn't work very often.
If you follow forum postings on the net, you'll see dozens of posts from users complaining about 'timeout' problems and other connection errors. I too was getting a timeout error on the Zodiac, specifically:Error: Serial: timed out. could be bad cable or faulty Modem, (0×0305).
I found I could reproduce the problem 100% of the time. When the Zodiac first attempts to connect via Network Access, a balloon tip will appear above the system tray:
Clicking that balloon will open a dialog box, asking for authorization for that device:
If you click OK in the auth dialog without ticking the 'Always allow...' checkbox, the connection will work fine. However, if you tick the 'Always allow...' checkbox, all subsequent connection attempts will fail, even if you reboot the machine and reset the Zodiac. And if you have to manually approve every connection attempt at the server, well, that makes a wireless connection pretty darned inconvenient, doesn't it?
I believe this is a bug in Widcomm's device pairing, as I could sometimes fix this by manually un-pairing and re-pairing the device. Of course, this bug isn't mentioned anywhere on D-Link's support site, and Widcomm will not deal with end-users directly.
Looks like its time to scoot my chair over to the Linux box again…
Maybe it's obvious, but Mozilla Thunderbird is not a usable alternative to Outlook 2003 . After playing with Thunderbird 1.0, it is a very well done email client app, perhaps the best Windows email client from someone other than Microsoft. But without a full-fledged PIM , a stand-alone email client is nearly worthless to me, and probably most other contemporary PC users. And that's a shame.
There is some promising vapor on the Mozilla web site called Lightning . Maybe Thunderbird will be worth checking out again a year from now.
Oh, and if you think Outlook is bloated compared to Thunderbird, check out the memory usage reported by Process Explorer's "Peak Working Set":
thunderbird.exe 24840 K
OUTLOOK.EXE 25800 K
Palm.exe 16820 K
Pretty similar memory usage. However, when idle, Outlook reduces its memory footprint (Working Set) to under 8000 K, whereas Thunderbird never shrinks. And if I want to run email and PIM like I do with Outlook, I need to include the 16820 K from the Palm Desktop.
And just for kicks, Mutt appears to use 100 K.
My mail servers support POP3 and IMAP . Because I'm using multiple clients nowadays, including webmail, Mutt, and Outlook 2003, I changed my Outlook config from POP3 to IMAP. Oops.
Outlook's support for IMAP is lacking a couple of features. Yes, it basically works, but here's what it won't do:
Omar at Microsoft looked in to IMAP email clients extensively, and wrote a great analysis in his blog. He concluded that Mozilla Thunderbird has the best Windows IMAP support.
I tried Thunderbird about 6 months ago, and it wasn't bad. But I use MS Outlook 2003 at home for a variety of reasons, mostly for:
At this point, I'm pretty much stuck with Outlook, and hoping someone at Microsoft decides to care about the problems.
Might be time to take a peek at Thunderbird again. Or maybe just stick with good ole' Mutt!
In the December 14, 2004 issue of PC Magazine, Bill Howard wrote an excellent article about the problems with fixed-resolution LCD panels and readability. Since most Windows apps can't deal with font DPIs other than 96 (lazy programmers), high-resolution LCD panels are straining our eyes with tiny on-screen text.
Howard notes that 100 DPI is the ideal resolution for readability, and provides a nice chart that shows native DPI for a variety of LCD panel sizes and resolutions. In the article, click on the link for the 'DPI: Crispness vs. Readability table.'
It's no wonder that my old Thinkpad X24 has such an easy to read screen: the native DPI for the 12 inch 1024×768 monitor is almost exactly 100!
Even though Java Applets are a somewhat rare sight these days, I still run across a web site or two (like iShares.com) that has a useful embedded Java Applet. Since Microsoft no longer distributes their own JVM, most web sites direct users to download the giant and clumsy JVM plugin from Sun.
But you don't have to! You can still find Microsoft's JVM out there on the net for download. Apparently, developers who have written apps in MS Visual J++ (hey wait a sec, that's me!) have the right to redistribute the JVM, and many have posted the JVM for download on their site. See http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA012735/vm_en.html, for example.
Even though Microsofts JVM is older, it still runs most Java Applets you'll find, and it is much much faster and more integrated with IE than Sun's bloated plugin (meaning: won't hang the browser like Sun's plugin).
Update - 01/09/05
You can also very easily remove the MS Virtual machine by opening a command line (or File/Run) and typing:RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection java.inf,UnInstall
That'll do the trick, but you'll also want to delete some registry and file system gruft. More details can be found here: http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/howto-21.html
Say it ain't so! The NYT is reporting that IBM plans to sell its entire PC division, including the legendary ThinkPad laptop brand, to a mainland Chinese PC manufacturer named Lenevo.
For those "in the know", there simply isn't a more reliable and indestructable PC laptop on Earth as good as a ThinkPad. And IBM's support is nearly unbeatable, even for legacy machines. I can't imagine how another company could pick up the ball and continue IBM's tradition (even knowing that ThinkPad manufacturing has almost always been outsourced). I guess we'll just have to hope for the best.
I was looking all over the place for a simple command-line ISO burning utility for WinXP. XP's built-in CD burning tools are great, but they can't burn ISOs. I considered using cdrecord, but as versatile as it is, it's also damned complicated.
As it turns out, the perfect little ISO-burning utility comes from none other than Microsoft! The utility cdburn is included with the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit, and it couldn't be easier to use. There are also a ton of other killer little utilities in the Resource Kit that are worth downloading, like a command line utility that let's you search and replace text in the Registry. Cool, eh?
