What just happened? This is the neglected official blog of the Electronic Punk - http://www.electronicpunk.com - The as-of-yet-undecided-title-el-presidente of OSNN.net. He totally promises to blog more than twice a year.
Power, Vista, Dog
Posted September 25th, 2006 at 7:26pm by Electronic Punk
Keywords in the title - Genius! I have been meaning to update for the last 3 weeks or so but it turns out I am lazy. But I think I have dredged together enough stuff to make a blog, I usually work on three items at least, I think I have got there, don't remember.
I ****ed up the logo at the top, was trying to tidy up my FTP and seems I deleted the logo, so made an even worse one up. Bugger. I need to redesign this site anyway, I have something brighter planned, got a photo that I don't hate of me, basically as it is blurred to hell and looks pretty artistic. We will see, or I could just do another logo, laziness prevails.
Gadget of the month
Ok lets pretend I bought that mouse last month, more recently picked up my another toy to keep me occupied, well a few of them actually. Three Wall-plugged HD Ethernet Adapters. Basically, I lost confidence in the wireless in my house, the walls are weird and probably have all kinds of crap in them that blocks the wireless signal. I was having trouble transmitting from my rig to a mediacenter directly below it, damn thing. So I got these instead.
Was quite an impulse buy, of course, I had no idea they were coming out. These are second generation devices, so almost by that definition they are good. On paper they are capable of 200 Mbps/sec which is ok really. If you consider my selective leaderboard.
---------------------------------------------------------
USB 1.1 - 1.5 Megabytes/sec
First Gen LAN-over-power - 10 Megabytes/sec
100 meg Network Connection - 12.5 Megabytes/sec
Second Gen LAN-over-power - 25 Megabytes/sec
Firewire 400 - 50 Megabytes/sec
USB 2.0 - 60 Megabytes/sec
1000 meg Network Connection - 125 Megabytes/sec
SATA2 Drive - 150 Megabytes/sec
---------------------------------------------------------
If anyone could confirm or disprove any of the information above I would love to hear about it, was quite fascinating. Losing to USB 2.0 is no disgrace, if you look at one of my previous logs regarding the My Book you will see I was very impressed by the speed and I still am.
How does it actually perform? Setting it up was easy. the manual goes into how you can access a web interface via a PC and set it all up, it claims to be encrypted but how does that work? Apparently you can chain upto 16 of these devices, these just all seemed to connect with no prompting, must be something you need to configure I guess.
Initially I was disappointed and it wasn't too responsive, turns out that using several multiplug adapters on both ends did not do it any good. I got it directly onto the mains at both ends and performance did increase, up to the point that I could actually stream a DVD from my PC upstairs with a bit of a pause at the start but it played with no problems.
I could guess that the reason for this is that the network bandwidth available is determined by the free current flowing down between the two devices, the more devices you have in between the two power switches the less room will be available for the network, naturally I have no idea if that is the case, but it makes sense to me and explains why things improved when I plugged them directly into the wall.
I really doubt it is getting true 200 Mbit/sec, not the least because its actually going thru a 100 Mbit/sec switch, but it actually felt slower than the media center near my PC. Of course I can blame the old house I am in, I doubt it has the kind of power circuit that will win any awards.
Overall I am happy with the improvements it has over the wireless (messing about with a little wireless bridge to try and make the damn thing work), so I will stick with, pretty new technology so is actually damn expensive but when the novelty wears off and the price drops, its definitely good for the kind of equipment you aren't going to constantly keep moving around.
The road to Vista RTM
It seems we are now on the final straight between now and Vista hitting the shelves, or at least going RTM and then waiting a few months then going to the shelves.
I have done several different upgrades and clean installs now, did a clean install on my laptop only to find out that it hates AVG again, not sure why, but I killed UAC and Security centre properly this time and then AVG installed. I don't have anything against either feature, but I have removed them anyway. I want to prod stuff without being asked if I want to prod stuff and being told I can't prod stuff unless I have prod-stuff authority.
Overall this new build did feel snappier, is it? Who knows. UAC seemed to behave differently this time around with Messenger only pestering me half way thru the install, was a little surreal. The download Live Messenger link also took me to the beta site as well rather than the correct messenger.live.com which was a little weird, so I had to login and download the beta, which in turn was actually the final. I did notice that installing Live Messenger still did not remove teh "Download Live Messenger" start menu entry and when I tried to do it I needed to elevate my priviledges, still hoping this will be built into the installer at some point, there is nothing I hate more than unneeded start menu entries.
There are still unneeded files I feel, more so in the x64 edition. I remember knowing it once, but why do we need 'Program Files' and 'Program Files(x86)' again? I know there was a good reason, but I can't help feeling its just a mess at the moment, perhaps it is partly caused by own reasoning that x64 is a failed experiment again. I would switch back but Vista is so close to being finished I may as well hang on.
The files I feel out of place include that bootsec.bak that appears in the boot partition, what is it a backup of? Why does it need to exist? Deleting it prompts for elevation and it destroys the initial cleanliness of looking at the C drive for the first time, open up 'users' and you will see 'Public' and 'Patrick' (spooky if that is your name too right?), beautiful. I have to delete sample images and music again, but I can cope with that (and I do remove them, Jazz and the other obscure music included are not for me - though I have no doubt people would call my kind of music obscure). Program Files has alot of old entries that just seem so silly.
'Common Files' - can just about cope with that one, a central place for files that all apps can access or would have otherwise been replicated all over the place
'MSbuild/Micorosft/Windows Workflow Foundation/3.0/' - You are going to tidy this up right?
'MSN' - contain one file, MSN Connection Center Install Wizard, eh? kill it?
'Reference Assemblies' - seems to contain the .net Framework 3.0 stuff, I am no developer but looks out of place.
'WindowsNT' - Tabletext service? Funnier tho is the appearance of wordpad and some manefest in the Accesories folder, surely this can be kept somewhere else? System32?
Closing in on the last chance to make these folders tidy ready for your users to ruin themselves. I was too scared to look in the Windows folder, but it did have a Panther folder in there, no idea what that one is.
I also took the opportunity to do my first Vista upgrade, only from 5600 to 5728 but it went pretty smoothly, inspection afterwards showed 'Administrator_PLOC' in users, an empty folder and deleting it had no adverse effects. After rebooting however there seemed to be a long pause at startup, with only volume and battery control showing on the taskbar, no network icon was available and trying to run anything that required UAC to elevate privileges just wasn't happening.
When the machine eventually did wake itself up again UAC actually seemed to be running in the background, flashing the taskbar, that isn't supposed to happen as UAC is supposed to lock you out of your own desktop unless you accept or deny the privilege elevation. Ah well, so I disabled it. Using methods I found that Chris Holmes had posted:
Disable User Account Control
Click Start, and then click on “Control Panel”.
In the Search box, type “User Accounts”
You will see a green entry that says “User Accounts” with an icon next to it, click on it.
Click on “Turn User Account Control on or off”.
If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on “Continue”.
Uncheck “Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer”
Click on OK, you will be prompted to reboot.
Hide the Windows Security Center icon
Click on the Start button and then click on “Control Panel”.
Under “Security”, click on “Check this computer’s security status”.
On the left hand side you will see an option that says “Change the way Security Center alerts me”, click on it.
Click on “Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon (not recommended)”
This same machine is also dual-booting and its very nice actually, although the new boot manager is a little daunting, but I eventually got it to meet my requirements by following the guide found on this page, well worth checking out.
Well apparently this isn't the last build that we will receive, as testers, but the newsgroups are unclear as to the whether or not the next build we do receive will be the RTM build or not, yes things really are that close. Looking forward to getting rid of XP x64 Edition at the moment, hopefully support for Vista x64 will be much better.
New dog incoming
The family is getting a dog. I forgotten what type it is but again isn't a lapdog, has been a while since we had a dog when Briegal died. Mostly looking forward to it.
I ****ed up the logo at the top, was trying to tidy up my FTP and seems I deleted the logo, so made an even worse one up. Bugger. I need to redesign this site anyway, I have something brighter planned, got a photo that I don't hate of me, basically as it is blurred to hell and looks pretty artistic. We will see, or I could just do another logo, laziness prevails.
Gadget of the month
Ok lets pretend I bought that mouse last month, more recently picked up my another toy to keep me occupied, well a few of them actually. Three Wall-plugged HD Ethernet Adapters. Basically, I lost confidence in the wireless in my house, the walls are weird and probably have all kinds of crap in them that blocks the wireless signal. I was having trouble transmitting from my rig to a mediacenter directly below it, damn thing. So I got these instead.
Was quite an impulse buy, of course, I had no idea they were coming out. These are second generation devices, so almost by that definition they are good. On paper they are capable of 200 Mbps/sec which is ok really. If you consider my selective leaderboard.
---------------------------------------------------------
USB 1.1 - 1.5 Megabytes/sec
First Gen LAN-over-power - 10 Megabytes/sec
100 meg Network Connection - 12.5 Megabytes/sec
Second Gen LAN-over-power - 25 Megabytes/sec
Firewire 400 - 50 Megabytes/sec
USB 2.0 - 60 Megabytes/sec
1000 meg Network Connection - 125 Megabytes/sec
SATA2 Drive - 150 Megabytes/sec
---------------------------------------------------------
If anyone could confirm or disprove any of the information above I would love to hear about it, was quite fascinating. Losing to USB 2.0 is no disgrace, if you look at one of my previous logs regarding the My Book you will see I was very impressed by the speed and I still am.
How does it actually perform? Setting it up was easy. the manual goes into how you can access a web interface via a PC and set it all up, it claims to be encrypted but how does that work? Apparently you can chain upto 16 of these devices, these just all seemed to connect with no prompting, must be something you need to configure I guess.
Initially I was disappointed and it wasn't too responsive, turns out that using several multiplug adapters on both ends did not do it any good. I got it directly onto the mains at both ends and performance did increase, up to the point that I could actually stream a DVD from my PC upstairs with a bit of a pause at the start but it played with no problems.
I could guess that the reason for this is that the network bandwidth available is determined by the free current flowing down between the two devices, the more devices you have in between the two power switches the less room will be available for the network, naturally I have no idea if that is the case, but it makes sense to me and explains why things improved when I plugged them directly into the wall.
I really doubt it is getting true 200 Mbit/sec, not the least because its actually going thru a 100 Mbit/sec switch, but it actually felt slower than the media center near my PC. Of course I can blame the old house I am in, I doubt it has the kind of power circuit that will win any awards.
Overall I am happy with the improvements it has over the wireless (messing about with a little wireless bridge to try and make the damn thing work), so I will stick with, pretty new technology so is actually damn expensive but when the novelty wears off and the price drops, its definitely good for the kind of equipment you aren't going to constantly keep moving around.
The road to Vista RTM
It seems we are now on the final straight between now and Vista hitting the shelves, or at least going RTM and then waiting a few months then going to the shelves.
I have done several different upgrades and clean installs now, did a clean install on my laptop only to find out that it hates AVG again, not sure why, but I killed UAC and Security centre properly this time and then AVG installed. I don't have anything against either feature, but I have removed them anyway. I want to prod stuff without being asked if I want to prod stuff and being told I can't prod stuff unless I have prod-stuff authority.
Overall this new build did feel snappier, is it? Who knows. UAC seemed to behave differently this time around with Messenger only pestering me half way thru the install, was a little surreal. The download Live Messenger link also took me to the beta site as well rather than the correct messenger.live.com which was a little weird, so I had to login and download the beta, which in turn was actually the final. I did notice that installing Live Messenger still did not remove teh "Download Live Messenger" start menu entry and when I tried to do it I needed to elevate my priviledges, still hoping this will be built into the installer at some point, there is nothing I hate more than unneeded start menu entries.
There are still unneeded files I feel, more so in the x64 edition. I remember knowing it once, but why do we need 'Program Files' and 'Program Files(x86)' again? I know there was a good reason, but I can't help feeling its just a mess at the moment, perhaps it is partly caused by own reasoning that x64 is a failed experiment again. I would switch back but Vista is so close to being finished I may as well hang on.
The files I feel out of place include that bootsec.bak that appears in the boot partition, what is it a backup of? Why does it need to exist? Deleting it prompts for elevation and it destroys the initial cleanliness of looking at the C drive for the first time, open up 'users' and you will see 'Public' and 'Patrick' (spooky if that is your name too right?), beautiful. I have to delete sample images and music again, but I can cope with that (and I do remove them, Jazz and the other obscure music included are not for me - though I have no doubt people would call my kind of music obscure). Program Files has alot of old entries that just seem so silly.
'Common Files' - can just about cope with that one, a central place for files that all apps can access or would have otherwise been replicated all over the place
'MSbuild/Micorosft/Windows Workflow Foundation/3.0/' - You are going to tidy this up right?
'MSN' - contain one file, MSN Connection Center Install Wizard, eh? kill it?
'Reference Assemblies' - seems to contain the .net Framework 3.0 stuff, I am no developer but looks out of place.
'WindowsNT' - Tabletext service? Funnier tho is the appearance of wordpad and some manefest in the Accesories folder, surely this can be kept somewhere else? System32?
Closing in on the last chance to make these folders tidy ready for your users to ruin themselves. I was too scared to look in the Windows folder, but it did have a Panther folder in there, no idea what that one is.
I also took the opportunity to do my first Vista upgrade, only from 5600 to 5728 but it went pretty smoothly, inspection afterwards showed 'Administrator_PLOC' in users, an empty folder and deleting it had no adverse effects. After rebooting however there seemed to be a long pause at startup, with only volume and battery control showing on the taskbar, no network icon was available and trying to run anything that required UAC to elevate privileges just wasn't happening.
When the machine eventually did wake itself up again UAC actually seemed to be running in the background, flashing the taskbar, that isn't supposed to happen as UAC is supposed to lock you out of your own desktop unless you accept or deny the privilege elevation. Ah well, so I disabled it. Using methods I found that Chris Holmes had posted:
Disable User Account Control
Click Start, and then click on “Control Panel”.
In the Search box, type “User Accounts”
You will see a green entry that says “User Accounts” with an icon next to it, click on it.
Click on “Turn User Account Control on or off”.
If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on “Continue”.
Uncheck “Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer”
Click on OK, you will be prompted to reboot.
Hide the Windows Security Center icon
Click on the Start button and then click on “Control Panel”.
Under “Security”, click on “Check this computer’s security status”.
On the left hand side you will see an option that says “Change the way Security Center alerts me”, click on it.
Click on “Don’t notify me and don’t display the icon (not recommended)”
This same machine is also dual-booting and its very nice actually, although the new boot manager is a little daunting, but I eventually got it to meet my requirements by following the guide found on this page, well worth checking out.
Well apparently this isn't the last build that we will receive, as testers, but the newsgroups are unclear as to the whether or not the next build we do receive will be the RTM build or not, yes things really are that close. Looking forward to getting rid of XP x64 Edition at the moment, hopefully support for Vista x64 will be much better.
New dog incoming
The family is getting a dog. I forgotten what type it is but again isn't a lapdog, has been a while since we had a dog when Briegal died. Mostly looking forward to it.
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