The Daily Bits

Right now I am writing this entry from Windows Live Writer on a Windows XP virtual machine running under VMware fusion on OS X.  I can say so far that Windows Live Mail and Windows Live photo gallery will be deployed through my household on the next reformat cycle.  Windows Live Photo Gallery appears to be almost an exact copy of the software that ships with Windows Vista.   

Anyways that’s all for the test of Windows Live Writer

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I just tried playing around with the new VMWare Fusion and Counter Strike Source. I could not even get it to run with and without 3D acceleration disabled. Sure I could install Windows on here but that would simply be a waste of time. Why should I run CS:S with an ATi X1600 when I have a fully featured 7800GT from Nvidia? It would be better than nothing if I didn’t have my native Windows machine. This brings me to another matter…

I was quite astounded when I saw these benchmark results for a home built mac. This isn’t exactly legal by means of the EULA even if you bought a copy of Leopard. Personally I see this as an opportunity for Apple to come up with a sub-iMac mac. Something without a built in screen, but more powerful than the mini.

Make up your mind if it’s legal or not… but nothing beats the simplicity of buying a new mac

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After quite a few hours of tinkering and diagnostics I was able to figure out that my OS drive was failing. Not to worry though. As of writing this Windows XP is installed and running at full speed. Right now I’m just waiting for the files for episode 110 to be transferred over for editing. The show should be out tonight.

There we go. File transfer done

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Today I wake up with the intention of listening to “The Tech Guy” radio show. However upon turning the screen on I notice that the hard drive activity light is on with a constant glow. I lock my computer down each night using Win + L. There was no response here, so as usual I decide to reboot. The thing takes 10 minutes to reboot! I’ve tried all the usual things (safe mode, last known good config, system restore) and nothing seems to be able to fix this.

Everything is slow. Opening applications, the start menu, system preferences etc… Any other day this might be interesting but today I have to edit up RSBANDBUpdate! 110. So lets just say this one might be delayed Sorry folks.

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Edit: This is why I got a mac.

Here’s an example of my multi tasking…

This includes updating parallels workstation (Windows XP), talking to Brad and Kelsey, editing R! Update 105, and watching the news.

I plan to add in logging on to rs to do some trading

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I wanted to share this Ctrl+Alt+Del comic with you guys. Basically it shows what moving to Vista feels like. At first you don’t want to leave Windows XP which you’ve become acquainted with and then you move to Vista. At first Vista is painful but you eventually adapt to it while it is still painful

View the original here.

Oh and for those who didn’t know the RSBANDB April fools prank ended two days ago

Edit: My April Desktop

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” While on a trip in Europe, Bill Gates claimed Vista is so secure and reliable that it could even run life support systems in hospitals. Would you let your life in Vista’s hands? ”

“This would really give a new meaning to the ‘Blue Screen of Death’”

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Today is a day that I thought would never come. Even last week it was sorta surreal, sitting eating lunch seeing Windows Vista advertised in the Future Shop and Best Buy fliers. Today Windows Vista was released after 5 years of work on it. I’m not running it as of right now, although I should take another look at it. It’s everywhere, from the tech communities such as digg all the way to Global National news in Canada. Local news reports state that upwards of 80 people were waiting at a Best Buy store before they opened today to get their copy of Windows Vista.

Some people say that the majority of features were copied by Apple’s OS X. That is the truth, it does give a fresh new feeling, several other applications have been added that are apple like. Some of these applications are the ‘gadgets’ and sidebar, beautiful windows effects and 3D transitions, and most notably the live search feature in the start menu (Can I call it this anymore?).

I will be taking another look at it, I just hope that there are no immediate security concerns. One more thing that made me feel better about it was clarification that only applications that require strong DRM will be effected if you don’t have the right equipment. Basically the entire system won’t be effected if you don’t have the right monitor or DVD player while trying to play a high-definition DVD format.

Has the ‘Wow’ started for you?

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I’ve played around with the previous versions of the Vista beta and RC series. I’ve played with build 5270 (December last year), build 5384 (first public release pre-RC1), RC1(build 5600), RC2(build 5744). Vista has gotten better since I first got to look at build 5270 back in December. RC2 is very solid, all my drivers work (the MIDI synthesizer isn’t the best though ).

I can also say that I am very impressed with the Aero UI (the glass, 3D fliper, and window animations). Windows Vista has been in development a long time, since before XP shipped in October 2001. You can read more about the “Road to Gold” at the WinSupersite. At this point in time I am happy with XP and feel that it is pretty secure after two service packs. This is the exact reason as to why I will be holding off upgrading to Vista. That being that I don’t want an OS that will be full of security holes. Now I am not saying that it will be plagued by holes as XP was. What I am really saying is that I just want to give Vista some time to sit in the wild with people trying to attack it.

If there are not many significant security holes by 6 months after the time Vista has been released I will gladly upgrade to it. I’ll probably go for Vista Home Premium. You can see more on the versions here.

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PS: As a final note on Windows Weekly 4, they stated that Longhorn (codename for Vista) was named after a bar You can download the clip here.

Yep you guessed it right based on that title, another Windows flaw. I posted about this also on the Rsbandb forums. There is one thing about this one, that is it has not had much coverage yet.

A zero-day exploit, makes it possible for any web site (or HTML email) to take over a Windows machine, even if it’s been fully patched.

http://www.twit.tv/sn58

There is no official patch yet from Microsoft.

You can however get a patch put out by ZERT – Zeroday Emergency Response Team.

You can find instructions for the patch and how to test if your vulnerable at this page.

You can find out more about this Security Now episode here, and get info to download it at TWiT.tv if you want.

It’s a good idea to patch it even if you don’t use Internet Explorer as your browser because some of you guys will use Outlook Express or Outlook which uses IE behind the scenes to display HTML email.

Now we just have to wait to see if Microsoft patches this before patch tuesday in October (second tuesday of the month). Or they may not patch it at all… But lets hope they do.

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