Computers

Free Windows Vista Ultimate has Arrived!

Microosft launched a program, called Windows Feedback Panel, several months ago. Participation in the program involved taking a survey or two, and installing an application on either Windows XP or Vista that monitors the software run on the machine, performance an stibility issues incurred, and the like. My having participated in the program for three months entitled me to a free copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, some flavor of Office 2007, or one of several other Microsoft products. It’s a cheap price for the software empire to pay to get feedback on their software.

My free copy/copies of Vista Ultimate arrived last Thursday and a simple manila bubble mailer. Inside that master envelope were two Windows Vista Ultimate discs (one 32-bit version, the other 64-bit, and each with a distinct license key), and a brief note thanking me for participating. However, I’m not quite ready to install. Here’s what my rig (if one can even call it that) has under the hood:

• Intel Pentium 4 running at 2.93 GHz
• 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM
• 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA I hard disk
• Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics

Needless to say, this is one woos of a computer. I doubt that it can run Aero Glass. But that’s not the only reason I’m not throwing Vista on yet: I live on XP, and simply upgrading from XP means that I’m virtually stuck with a brand-new OS, with a very difficult recourse if I don’t like it.

But with every problem, there’s a solution, and mine is to install Vista on a new hard drive (my current one is too small to adequately partition for Vista) and dual-boot. Let’s keep going with that thought: How about installing Vista on an eSATA (external Serial ATA) disk? That would allow me to transport the drive to another computer if / when I need / want to. In my case, it’s as simple as installing an eSATA expansion bracket, as my system was probably built before the eSATA spec even existed.

The hard drive I’m eyeing is the Western Digital 500 GB My Book Studio Edition, which includes a plethora of interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and eSATA II at 3 Gb/sec) and has a form factor similar to that of my current Western Digital My Book 250 GB Essentials Edition. The Studio Edition drive features a sleek casing and plenty of storage space, and happens to work with all of my currently used computers.

Every great idea comes with a party who suggested it. I’d like to thank LifeHacker for mentioning the Windows Feedback Panel program. Also, it was nice having @SoloTech to chat about the program with.

Warning: Don’t Download ManyCam

Since I’m running the operating system considered second-class to a big minority (a.k.a. Windows XP), I am on the lookout for good webcam effects software. So far, I have come across two free equivalents to CamTwist for Windows, by the names of Super Webcam and ManyCam.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend ManyCam at all. While I was uninstalling it, after finding it to be not incredibly useful, it erased all of the start menu shortcuts on my system! I don’t know whether it was the developers’ fault, Nullsoft’s (or whoever wrote their installers), or my own computer’s fault or glitch, but it sure is annoying.

The quick moral of the story: Don’t download ManyCam! And if you already have it installed, find a way to manually remove it (files, shortcuts, registry keys and all). If you uninstall it, ManyCam will make your life miserable.

Top 10 Tools In My Life

Chris Garrett wrote about the top ten online tools he finds most important; most of them being communications tools of some sort. In following his theme, I figured I would reveal my list, from a non-developer geek’s point of view:

1. Opera
2. Gmail
3. Google Reader (and all of the various feeds I subscribe to with it)
4. WordPress (makes managing a blog so much easier)
5. Google Web Search
6. Motorola i855 cell phone from Boost Mobile (cheap way to stay in contact; free incoming text messaging)
7. Sony CLIÉ T665C Palm-powered PDA

Widescreen Mania

This summer, among many summers at camp, I will be officially working for the first time (unlike the fake work I did last summer that some of my friends may remember), which means I will come home with some cash (hopefully). Anyone who knows me also knows that I don’t hold on to money for very long without spending it on something. Since I have to keep up the tradition, my latest addition to my tech wish list is (drum roll please):
Dell’s E228WFP 22-inch Widescreen LCD monitor. Why did I choose that of all things?

It probably began with my visit to the Apple store. Looking at an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD Display really wows you (and warms you too – that things was giving off heat like the steam pipe in my bathroom, although it might have been the Mac Pro sitting next to it that made me sweat). But who on earth can afford something like that? The previous revision of the wish list included the 20 inch Apple Cinema Display, but once I saw the Dell, my jaw dropped, at – you guessed it – the price tag.

This gorgeous display gives you a comfortable 1680 by 1050 pixel resolution, which is plenty of space to do all sorts of things at once. Coincidentally, this monitor costs less (at this point, about $60 less) than its 20 inch brother, but also omits its USB hub and additional video inputs (the E228WFP only supports D-sub VGA and DVI-D, while the 2007WFP also has S-Video and Composite inputs).

But the fun doesn’t end there. If I still have a reasonable chunk of change left over, the next item on the list is a new graphics card. With that, I’ll have a really nice dual monitor setup, with both the current HP 17 inch LCD and the new Dell giving an unimaginable view of my desktop. I’m eyeing Newegg.com’s selection of PCI-interfacing graphics cards, since there isn’t an AGP slot for the purpose (or at least one that is available for use, because it seems that there are contacts on the motherboard for an AGP slot with no connector on them; BTW this is the one trouble with my computer). The plan is to have the Dell hooked up with the DVI-I port, and the HP with the D-sub VGA. It all sounds far fetched, but this idea should work.

Do you have any dual-monitor setups you’d like to share? If so, sound off in the comments below.

A Mac for Mike

This lovely vacation day of mine brought me to both my orthodontist, and then to the Apple store in Manhattan (three buses and two subway trains later). I saw the entrance to the store last night, and then decided to come here. I actually began posting this from one of the Macs at the store. The place is loud and a bit busy-feeling. I guess Apple really is that popular.

Once I got past the initial shock, I sat down with a couple of Macs: a black MacBook, a Mac Pro with a gorgeous 30-inch Apple Cinema Display, and a 17-inch MacBook Pro. In particular, the big-screen really impressed me – I could see the entire write post screen without scrolling! All of the machines are beautiful, although they are also all hot – literally. Even on ths 30-something degree day, I think they could use some AC in the shop (forget about summer!).

I was particularly wowed by the speed of these guys. Opening Safari took just a few seconds. When I plugged my Cruzer Micro into the MacBook Pro’s USB port, it was mounted and ready for use about a second later, and preparing it for removal was nearly instant. And even Photoshop CS2 didn’t take so much time to load.

Using a Mac is different. Many of the familiar keyboard shortcuts from Windows (ex. Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, Ctrl + A, Alt + F4, and many others) don’t mean anything on a Mac. I tired taking a screenshot, only to note the absence of a Print Screen key (turns out Grub is the program for this task).

Toward the end of my visit, I got one of the store reps to show me Windows on a Mac. As I’ve read before, the process of booting into Windows is very simple: At startup, just choose the OS to boot into. Once booted up and logged in, the machine acted like a normal Windows XP box, with the same normal apps, and the same errors (I had to add that). To top it all off, the graphics card was running at the 24″ iMac’s native resolution, giving me the same giant-screen feeling that I got with the Mac Pro and then 30″ Cinema Display.

I think I love Macs. I don’t have the money to buy one now, but I will definitely talk about it for my next computer.

Today’s Memory Cards: Too Darn Small (Literally)

Today I was doing a bunch of things with my brand-new SD card (which I use pretty much for my camera), namely transferring pictures to my computer and printing a photo.Stupidly, after I got all this done, I didn’t manage to get the card back in the camera’s slot, and now the card has gone AWOL (in other words, missing). Sure these cards may be able to fit into the smallest of electronic devices, but keeping track of them can be a chore.

Overlapping Words For Strong Passwords

Ilya Lichtenstein writes about his new method for generating hard-to-crack passwords. The method consists of inserting letters of one word between the letters of another word. Pretty novel algorithm if you ask me.

How Opera Revolutionized the Internet

Ever since its young ages – way before Firefox was even a speck in someone’s mind – Opera was leading the pack with some of today’s most common features, like tabbed browsing and many more. Today, Opera is probably the leader of browsers in terms of power and sophistication: it includes an integrated mail client, a feed reader, phishing filter, widgets, and many other major and minor features that make your browsing experience better.

Until a short while ago, Opera was ad-laden until you paid for it (although the text ads option produced neater Google-powered ads). Not too long ago, as of version eight-point-something (I don’t remember the exact number right now), released September 20 (see Opera’s Milestones page), Opera became totally free.

Customization is priority number one: Any toolbar and button can be positioned virtually anywhere. For example, I like to have a new tab button directly to the left of the tabs, like Netscape 7.2 had. In Firefox, the only choice I have is on the far left of the toolbar above the tab bar, while in Opera, it can go anywhere I could possibly want. In the later versions, there is a feature called Widgets, which are essentially the same as anybody else’s implementation, except that they are part of Opera, not the OS.

Opera sets new standards for speed – even Firefox comes second to Opera. The page rendering speeds are simply blazing. When I left Netscape for Opera, this was one of my first observations. Pages render in seconds, not days, as in the case of Internet Explorer 6.

The integrated feed reader and  mail client are a bit different, but work pretty well. Upon viewing a feed’s URL, Opera will display the feeds contents all scrambled up, but will ask you in a polite dialog box whether you want to add it to your feeds. Reading feed messages is normal, but the message pane does not display images, like the readers in other apps do (I think).

The only way to really get a feel for Opera is to use it. It’s a bit different than other browsers, but once you get used to it, you will never want to use another browser, except for the times you visit a site nobody ever bothered to code properly. Go grab Opera now – it’s free!