Just Too Techy
I realise that alot of my recent posts are a little to techy for the friends and family crowd that this blog is intended for. For instance, I haven't commented on my little boy's birthday, my brothers pictures or even my NEW car. Yes, my lovely new car!!!! (Sorry 'our' lovely new car.)
Therefore I have set up a new blog ("Another one!") called Just Too Techy for where to vent my techiness in a safe place with out being a danger to myself and others.
If still interested in the too-techy nature of some of my blogs recently you can pick up the geek-thought-process there.
Thanks for you time. Normal service will assume... Now!
Showing posts with label tech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tech. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 May 2007
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
Three system snap
I was doing a remote meeting/presentation on Monday (after spending the entire night preparing!). The meeting was in Venray, Netherlands, I was in Oxford and another of my colleagues was in New York State. I took this snapshot when the guy in the States was presenting.
I was on a Vista laptop running a Win 2k VM image running a WebEx session over a VPN:
Vista -> Win2k (VM) -> XP (WebEx)
All that whilst attending the conference call on Skype.
Earlier I was logged on to a remote desktop remote controling another session. So that would be:
Vista -> Win2k (VM) -> Win Server 2k3 (RDP) -> Win Server 2k3 (RC)
All off one laptop. Now that's impressive!
"Dude, you're such a multi-machine wizard, dude!"
I'm such geek! :)
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Firefox Unusable
Unfortunately, I recently had to stop using Firefox. Not sure why but the browser just kept on hanging for a few seconds and then continuing. It kept doing this everytime a new page was loaded and just got unbearable. It does not seem to be the case with Flock with is based on the same Mozilla Core as Firefox so I have taken to using that as my main browser.
It's just so frustrating when you have an issue like that and don't have the time to debug. All the URLs I found whilst searching for online support were talking about doing things I had already done such as turning off all the extensions, running in safe-mode and even a post on how to write a batch script to kill the Firefox process task manager when it hangs. I mean, the mind boggles. Why keep on using the browser if it keeps hanging?
Thank goodness for Flock.
Anyway... maybe it's something to do with Vista. Yes, I have my new laptop. Surprisingly very little has troubled me about it so far. I haven't yet written about it as I have been busy working on it. More about Vista later.
It's just so frustrating when you have an issue like that and don't have the time to debug. All the URLs I found whilst searching for online support were talking about doing things I had already done such as turning off all the extensions, running in safe-mode and even a post on how to write a batch script to kill the Firefox process task manager when it hangs. I mean, the mind boggles. Why keep on using the browser if it keeps hanging?
Thank goodness for Flock.
Anyway... maybe it's something to do with Vista. Yes, I have my new laptop. Surprisingly very little has troubled me about it so far. I haven't yet written about it as I have been busy working on it. More about Vista later.
Wednesday, 21 March 2007
Real Geeks use Macs
I am increasingly drawn to the Mac.
I've always enjoyed it's sleek looks and the way Apple had MS bail it out of trouble in the 90s (to save MS from being sliced and diced under competition laws). I even offered to buy my wife one for her birthday in a moment of sheer selflessness >ahem<
But, The Register's article proclaiming '10 Reasons to Buy a Mac' has firmly placed it above the Aston Martin Vanquish in my wishlist (but not above the DB9 or DB6, so please feel free). A further discussion with my networking buddy, Bob, about Parallels and XP emulation almost pushed it right to the top.
The 3rd Party software market is pretty cool too. I'm always jealous reading 43 folders when they start talking about the latest Mac productivity tool. My sister showed up with her newly purchased MacBook a couple of weeks ago and I was fairly impressed. Especially, with Comic Life, a comic creation tool that allows you to insert your photos in a comic style layout (see Guy Kawasaki's post)
My family always seem to think I am going to be hostile towards the Mac. I've had my brother, sister and father tentitively ask me about the Mac as though I was going to explode and start ranting. Which I do - but in a nice way.
Since the transition to a Unix based OS I've seen alot more geeks using Macs. I know Chris Pirillo and the bloke who started Slashdot use them. Then there was the intern who came to work at a Unix company I used to work with. Not just the airy-fairy, yet highly talented, graphic designery/architecty friends I've got (only joking - Tim, Peter and Prod!).
There are many issues still for me to use a Mac. Much of my work is VMware and PC based. But for most Office-based users there really shouldn't be many issues to using a Mac. I'm not so sure about the networking side of Macs either. I know that most of the time 'they just work' but that really doesn't help me when it comes to solving why they aren't working... It just seems like the the big boys have Macs.
To end this Pro-Mac post here's a little UK version of the Mac ads from Mitchell and Webb. Though you'll notice it's from YouTube. No idea why you can't embed the ones on the Mac site?
Update: You may have noticed that was the wrong video. But I enjoyed it so much I've left it there. You can see the one I meant to emded on my next post.
I've always enjoyed it's sleek looks and the way Apple had MS bail it out of trouble in the 90s (to save MS from being sliced and diced under competition laws). I even offered to buy my wife one for her birthday in a moment of sheer selflessness >ahem<
But, The Register's article proclaiming '10 Reasons to Buy a Mac' has firmly placed it above the Aston Martin Vanquish in my wishlist (but not above the DB9 or DB6, so please feel free). A further discussion with my networking buddy, Bob, about Parallels and XP emulation almost pushed it right to the top.
The 3rd Party software market is pretty cool too. I'm always jealous reading 43 folders when they start talking about the latest Mac productivity tool. My sister showed up with her newly purchased MacBook a couple of weeks ago and I was fairly impressed. Especially, with Comic Life, a comic creation tool that allows you to insert your photos in a comic style layout (see Guy Kawasaki's post)
My family always seem to think I am going to be hostile towards the Mac. I've had my brother, sister and father tentitively ask me about the Mac as though I was going to explode and start ranting. Which I do - but in a nice way.
Since the transition to a Unix based OS I've seen alot more geeks using Macs. I know Chris Pirillo and the bloke who started Slashdot use them. Then there was the intern who came to work at a Unix company I used to work with. Not just the airy-fairy, yet highly talented, graphic designery/architecty friends I've got (only joking - Tim, Peter and Prod!).
There are many issues still for me to use a Mac. Much of my work is VMware and PC based. But for most Office-based users there really shouldn't be many issues to using a Mac. I'm not so sure about the networking side of Macs either. I know that most of the time 'they just work' but that really doesn't help me when it comes to solving why they aren't working... It just seems like the the big boys have Macs.
To end this Pro-Mac post here's a little UK version of the Mac ads from Mitchell and Webb. Though you'll notice it's from YouTube. No idea why you can't embed the ones on the Mac site?
Update: You may have noticed that was the wrong video. But I enjoyed it so much I've left it there. You can see the one I meant to emded on my next post.
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
Let's Get Vista-ish!
Another one of those 'probably linked everywhere already' posts, but if want to get all Vista on yo' computer's rear-end without investing the hundreds of pounds/dollars/yen to buy the OS then C-Net.tv have a few tips help you go about it.
Judging by some poor people's reactions to Vista this may well be a wise choice.
Been taking a look at the requirements on the MS Vista site and I have to say they look extraordinarily optimistic. I have the advantage of coming from a MS support background so I guess I'm used to apply a factor of two to most official requirements from Microsoft. But 1GB RAM! Come on - no way!
Taking a look at the recommended requirements page made me since wince so hard I almost facially scarred myself. They are recommending 512Mb RAM for Home Basic Edition! This presumably is the new type of RAM made from pixie dust that releases loveliness into the ether whilst enabling us to run several VMware machines and play Half Life 2, Halo and Call of Duty 3 concurrently, repairs the ozone layer and negotiates a never-broken peace agreement in the Middle East?
OK, so take that last OTT statement. I could have used about half the amount of sarcasm, but I doubled it. My advice, do the same with the system recommendations and upgrade your hardware before you upgrade to Vista.
So why are the recommendations so low? Well, probably because Microsoft doesn't want to look like you have to buy a whole new computer before you upgrade. And when you do buy that new computer that it has to be twice the spec your old computer was when you bought it a year ago thinking it was pretty future proof.
To be fair to Microsoft this was pretty much to be expected. I've not seen the new OS yet but if it really is the next step in the evolution of the world's favourite OS then it's going to need a bit of extra power. I use Windows XP to pretty much it's maximum capacity at the moment and I have to say I can't wait for my upgrade (which is coming soon).
From what my brother says about his experiences I may feel differently when it gets here. So we'll see.
Beta News has one of the best articles I have seen on the system requirements. Also, one of the best lines: "It's just Vista, and it needs more processing power just to be Vista."
Judging by some poor people's reactions to Vista this may well be a wise choice.
Been taking a look at the requirements on the MS Vista site and I have to say they look extraordinarily optimistic. I have the advantage of coming from a MS support background so I guess I'm used to apply a factor of two to most official requirements from Microsoft. But 1GB RAM! Come on - no way!
Taking a look at the recommended requirements page made me since wince so hard I almost facially scarred myself. They are recommending 512Mb RAM for Home Basic Edition! This presumably is the new type of RAM made from pixie dust that releases loveliness into the ether whilst enabling us to run several VMware machines and play Half Life 2, Halo and Call of Duty 3 concurrently, repairs the ozone layer and negotiates a never-broken peace agreement in the Middle East?
OK, so take that last OTT statement. I could have used about half the amount of sarcasm, but I doubled it. My advice, do the same with the system recommendations and upgrade your hardware before you upgrade to Vista.
So why are the recommendations so low? Well, probably because Microsoft doesn't want to look like you have to buy a whole new computer before you upgrade. And when you do buy that new computer that it has to be twice the spec your old computer was when you bought it a year ago thinking it was pretty future proof.
To be fair to Microsoft this was pretty much to be expected. I've not seen the new OS yet but if it really is the next step in the evolution of the world's favourite OS then it's going to need a bit of extra power. I use Windows XP to pretty much it's maximum capacity at the moment and I have to say I can't wait for my upgrade (which is coming soon).
From what my brother says about his experiences I may feel differently when it gets here. So we'll see.
Beta News has one of the best articles I have seen on the system requirements. Also, one of the best lines: "It's just Vista, and it needs more processing power just to be Vista."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)