Etherpunk

Stock HP Pavilion Ultimate d4999t:

Ok, so apparently it only displays properly in IE... that's fucked up.

update: Also doesn't display in Firefox 3 Beta 5. I'll investigate why.... merely just to know.

Not too long ago Apple attempted to push for Safari to get installed by lieing and saying it was part of its update scheme.

This has been blogged all over the web with usually a bad flavor in many peoples mouth.

Some believe that most users just click OK because of Vista's UAC... they are failing to take in to account that the users are not only not informed but the geeks tell them things along the lines of "if an update comes up, just update".

This "let's blame Vista!" attitude is getting anoying. Mostly because far too few people have legit complaints. In fact most people, who are willing to udnerstand that things in the computer world change, have no problem with it. At all. Those that DO have a problem where the EXACT same people bitching about "fisher price XP". Guess which one they love and hate now? Hypocrits. My uncle is someone who just wants it to work and refuses to learn anything different. I remember him going from Office 97 to Office 2003 and how much be bitched. 98-2k, same thing. Oh well... when the fear controls your actions.. they aren't your actions anymore.

Many people are jumping to Mac thinking their stuff Just Works (TM) and they don't have to worry about getting infected with malware. That's only true in the short term. The real problem is education. Someone uninformed isn't going to know the difference between an application needing updates asking for root privs than a trojan asking for root privs. In fact the biggest safeguard for Macs is their list of software you can install is so small it's unreal. Judging from the experience my employers are having and the complaints I've heard people say about Mac it's pretty much turned me off from a Mac -- especially about the VMWare Fusion.

I don't remember if I posted my complaints about Vista but it really only boils down to OpenGL sucks. I can't play NS anymore correctly (your evolution bar isn't shown properly).

I'll bitch more about this later.

Update: Here is some linkage.

I'm in the process of getting an app going under .NET 3.0 using Visual Studio 2008 to see the differences in speed between Linq, SubSonic, and using a plain SQLDataAdapter. Yes, I'm well aware using a DataReader / DataAdapter is going to be faster -- the question is: How much faster? Is it worth making the code that much more cleaner? What about if the code is only going to be used once 4 months from now and, hopefully, never touched again? My problem is I want something to be as fast as possible without making code ugly and without spending a lot of time tweaking -- so I'm taking the shotgun approach. At the moment, it seems like they are all fairly close unless you are dealing with LOTS (millions) of records -- which I am not. SubSonic has its fair share of bugs such as puking if a table doesn't have a primary key. I can understand it not understanding how to right back or do complex queries, I just want to populate a collection with a 'Select *' type statement -- so it doesn't need a care about primary keys as I'm just going to loop through item in the collection and pull data as I see fit. Also, SubSonic seems to always do a 'SELECT *' type query if I want to use the simple code such as 'Some_DB.Some_TableCollection TC = new Some_DB.Some_TableCollection().Load();'. If I want to be specific then I have to use a Query class. Even worse, it's /horrible/ at doing OR's. They really prefer you to use views or stored procedures. Neither of those are bad, but I'm not writing code for something anyone else but me should be using -- so I don't care about exploits or any safety measures. Even if I was, this engine doesn't have any direct input mechanism, so good luck with that. Linq seems overly complicated. Fucking A is it a bitch to setup. Nothing seems automatic. Code doesn't /feel/ cleaner (so far from my, admittedly, little testing). Google doesn't seem to know how to use it either. I'm finding contradicting information. So, this means I have to do a "best case scenario" speed test to get both Linq and SubSonic working, which isn't a bad idea. One of the programming styles I learned was "assume everything will work perfectly, *then* make exceptions". The alternative, which is more common, is plan for the worst then if it's the best do X. The problem with that is you are always occurring the overhead of the worst instead of doing the best first and if it fails (Which it rarely should) then go to some exception handling. This places me back at square 1. Here is my game plan:

• Have a script which will populate a database + table with random data. This way nothing can be cached and you can regen as needed. This will probably populate a 'person' table with 2 million records. This is a small amount compared to some other databases, but for our instance it should be plenty to test for speed.
• Write a GUI which has a listbox and a DataGridView. The listbox will contain different methods of getting data from a SQLServer to a DataGridView. The hope being that if I can get it from a SQLServer to a DGV then I can be fairly certain nothing got cached and everything got pulled over for data manipulation.
• Write a a few tests. These tests will probably be a simple SubSonic, Linq, and SQLDataAdapter. I will later do more complex queries and embed them to attempt to bring out slowness or resource hogs. SQDA and SubSonic will be the first two. Linq will be third, and any other complex queries will be last.
• Open source the program and release to world under BSD license.

I'm also probably going to try some of this code on other DB engines such as MySQL and SQLite.

I'm finding that Microsofts eopen website /still/ sucks after many years.
It's still just as flakey as when I used it when I worked at C&D.

It seems that 1/5 of the time I get a 'Service Unavailable', another 1/5 of the time it simply redirects my login back to the orginal page without actually logging me in, another 1/5 of the time is spent waiting... for 10+ seconds for a page to respond (with a random chance as to what error message, if any, I'll get or not), and the other 2/5's of the time it works.

I don't think I've /ever/ found a website that was this unreliable. Wow.

New workstation

So -- my Sager NP 5750 is going flakey. This isn't an OS issue. Occasionally Windows will just turn off or reboot. I will also find that, usually after this reboot, the bios locks when I have USB devices plugged in. I will havce to unplug these, turn it off, unplug the power, and let it sit for a few minutes. So... I'm going to look for a replacement. I now have no need for a laptop so I'm probably going to go for a Desktop. Since I can't afford it with cash, and I've been waiting until I could (for probably over 2 months now) however this has made me go "well fuck...", I'll have to use credit. So at the moment I'm looking at a Dell. More specifically the Inspiron 530. The slim versions seem to cost a little more and I don't care about case size. I'm not fully trusting of 64-bit Windows yet, so I have to go with the Intel Core2 Duo route and Vista still acts like shit when it comes to gaming, so I'm getting XP -- or at least an XP capable machine (meaning the damn thing needs to have drivers for XP at the very least). I'm going to stick with just 2GB of memory since 1GB served me just fine, except when I tried to program / run HL2 in Vista (which worked, just loading sucked). So I still think 2GB is fine and I can always upgrade later -- assuming they don't fuck me on slots. I'm worried about Dell support though.. they seem to still be lacking in their area. In fact, it seems that unless you get the insane warranties -- they treat you like shit. Which is enough to make me consider going to HP instead.. but I would suspect they are roughly the same in attitude in tech support. I have no reason to believe they are different.

Mice

I'm going to be going to a wired mouse as well. While the MX 1000 was probably the BEST mouse I will /ever/ own, the MX Revolution just was too flakey for me. The LED's aren't working anymore. It never tells me when it needs a charge anymore. It will occassionally just stop working until I unplug, re-seat, and do some voodoo. So, I'm probably going to get a Dell "Premium" mouse since they offer another G7/MX Revolution (I know they aren't the same but for my purposes they are). When I was using a laptop to travel / do things -- wireless fucking ROCKED. Now that I have no need for that, it has no value to me anymore aside from now having wires and consuming batteries or needing to be re-charged. Backups My 160GB backups aren't sufficient anymore and my single 300GB drive just isn't cutting it. I need more space. So I'm also going to order three 500GB WesterDigital MyBooks. One will /always/ be plugged in and on. The other two will serve as backups to this one, with one being swapped out and stored in a closet. I'm more concerned about a surge destroying one than I am a fire -- thus the reason on why I want it unplugged and out of the way. Hopefully this extra 200GB will help.

Conclusion

All in all, I'm probably going to spend about $1,700 -- if I want a new monitor. I'm thinking on getting a 19" capable of doing 1600x1200, but I may go up to a 22" -- I dunno.

So, yet again, I'm left disappointed with Vista Business. Sure, it's pretty. Sure, it has many features that I enjoy that XP doesn't have (out of the box).

• It does not have proper OpenGL support (or at least with my Radeon X1600 Mobility, for my Sager NP 5760 Notebook).
• It's still a good bit of a memory hog
• Watching clips from across my wireless network is a pain in the ass at times. More specifically, everything *but* watching them is a pain in the ass. For example, right-clicking on a file to see how big it is or wanting to append it to WMP.
• iTunes still seems flakey is shit. In fact, I've even had it lock up explorer pretty bad -- to the point bringing up task manager was impossible (or took longer than 5 minutes; which at that point I deemed it never coming up) and required a reboot via holding down the power button for 4-5 seconds... This, at one point, caused my iPod to lock up and I had to Google to see WTF happened and I then learned how to force iPod's to reboot.. which seemingly fixed my iPod that was locked up.
• I almost feel like learning .NET 3.5, the new compact framework for .NET 3.5, and all that new fancy stuff is a little too bleeding edge. In fact, I'm seriously considering bailing off the .NET train and going to some OS independent language -- perhaps Mono or Java. I have no problem programming in VI or notepad. IDE's are nice, but I'm not willing to buy Visual Studio 2008 when it comes out, I think. We'll see if I actually hold to that though...
• Not enough vendors are caring about Vista users *fucking still*. Some are still pointing fingers... yeah.. I got a finger for them... (this one isn't Microsoft's fault, but it still hurts my impression on Vista)
• If I leave my printer unplugged (from the USB) for a few minutes, when I plug it back in I have to reconfigure the damn fax... every...freaking...time. WTF is up with that? Again, probably not Microsoft's fault -- probably HP's. Perhaps even mine for missing some "save this forever-until-it-becomes-rust-or-bad-plastic" setting...
• This one is VERY minor, but something I noticed -- Gimp doesn't take entirely correct screen shots -- the mouse pointer seems to have a strange black'ish circle or something. I wonder why...

So, at this point, one may be wondering why I'm even running a Microsoft OS instead of Linux. The answer is -- Microsoft Office 2007 rules. I really enjoy it. It took me a while to get used to it, but I really do enjoy it. I don't recommend it for people who are slow on computers, however, but I do recommend it for advanced users. Another reason is I'm hoping SP1 will fix a lot of the weirdness, although I doubt it. I want to give them the best shot they have. Alternatively, I could just wait until June '08 and see where it's at there. I seem to hack off the "activiation" wizard because I format and reinstall every 6 months or so... they don't like that. They can bite me. Without teeth. Gums only. :-P

If I were Microsoft...
This blog is not meant to be taken literally. It's a what-if type thing, meaning I haven't thought it through and I'm sure it's riddle with logical holes I've missed.

Microsoft has been fumbling around with some bad judgment calls and statements. I don't really have citations to back this up, it's just stuff I have gathered over the past few years. I suspect they are realizing that other gorillas are getting to be 800lbs as well and it's scaring them. They are reacting poorly.

• I would have three different Office profiles -- one where it makes it very easy for those not good with computers, another where it offers more advanced things to allow the newbie to advance, and the last one would be optimal for developers or power users. I would apply this logic to as much software as possible -- to allow people of all experience to benefit the most.
• Any unsupported Windows code should be have the source code viewable. I'm not saying open source it (e.g. GPL/BSD it, and I realize some code would require and NDA -- don't release the NDA stuff), I'm saying allow those still using it to update it or do what they want. Unless there is something illegal in the code somehow, Microsoft has nothing to lose by doing this and more to gain. It's unsupported -- so no one would get help from MS, so MS wouldn't have to worry about tech-support lines getting cluttered.
• The Big Leap(TM). If Vista x64 was a bit more stable / had more shit to run on it, then I would say lock in that on your sights. I want to lose legacy stuff. Serial ports, parallel ports, vga, everything except USB, audio, and dvi. Develop an open standard for new hardware. I have no problem buying a new computer -- so long as there is a good reason and the OS isn't the reason so much as it's time to drop the old shit which causes bugs and just general overhead that isn't needed. The old stuff done by third-parties usually doesn't have drivers that are up to snuff.
• For The Big Leap(TM) above, re-write the OS to remove old cruft. I want everything re-written in the latest .NET. Even notepad. I want the code gone over and looked at for exploits -- thus why I want even things as simple as notepad redone.
• Drop DRM. The free counter-parts, OSS, can do this without it and will eventually pass you unless you realize that's not that people want. Given the choice, which would someone choose? Think pro-actively.
• Don't think you can lock-in the future by locking everyone else out. There will always be someone willing to do it for free in there own time.
• Software patch roll-up's. I would LOVE to be able to download some .msi or something that would patch my computer to the latest. Obviously the only real advantage of this is for those that just got their computer up for the first time, but it would save on so much time.
• Be more like Google in the Do No Evil type attitude. It's working because people like things that benefit them, not shaft them. They will naturally want that and pay more for it. The control had before is slipping away fairly quickly, use the control to do some benefit to the world and who knows, you might make a dime.
• Games. Put some cheesy games in -- something to burn time and give people a chance to go "ooh, I like those type of games!". Games such as FPS, RTS, RPG, etc. They don't need to be great, something simple is preferable. Hell, you could even have a bundles "Microsoft Vista: Fully Loaded" version which has all this stuff plus other things. Might even have Office.
• Put out a FunPack again, but put more in to -- such as Office Templates, some Visual Studio examples, a few games (or would this be where the games should be instead of the previous line?), tweak-ui type program, some side-bar gadgets -- all of which you can download for free from the site, this is just a bundled pack. Get some money from the lazy or those that deem it nice stuff but not worth their time to download. Or you can even split these up on to different discs and sell them on the $5 rack or something.
• Boot manager -- I wonder what it would be like if Microsoft wrote a boot manager to boot OpenBSD, Linux, etc.
• Bring back the tagging file system. I could easily see why you wouldn't run it on your OS partition (what tags would be put for files in 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework' that wouldn't clutter a tag db?), I could easily see how cool it would be being put on to a data drive. Perhaps this job is better left to an outsider app and not built-in to the OS.
• Redo the Zune. Talk to Apple and see if you can work together on something. When people get a music player, they have certain expectations. Zune sometimes doesn't fill these in a manner people expect -- so if I see someone buying a Zune for their kid, I usually tell them to get the iPod unless the kid specifically asked for the Zune. Although, to be fair -- I know very little about the Zune except from what my friends and others around have told me, this is is mostly 3rd person info that I've relaying on this one.

I'll comment more on the mobile front when CingularAT&T updates the 8525 to WM6.

* Anything with a (TM) isn't really trademarked.. it's meant to be a joke.. please laugh.

So, I'm giving Vista another shot. I'm going to learn the .NET 3.0 and 3.5 stuff, since 3.5 should be coming out soon. Here is the list of the software I'm running:

• Adobe Flash Player
• Filezilla
• Firefox (with AdBlock plus, Filterset.G, Gmail notifier, Flashblock)
• Logitech Setpoint
• Metapad
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
• Natural Selection
• Pidgin
• Putty
• Steam
• Virtual Clone Drive
• VLC (aka VideoLAN)
• WinDirStat
• WinSCP
• Yahoo Messenger

I'm going to try Nero again, but last time it said I had an invalid code key -- funny, it works in XP -- and Nero wasn't willing to help, so I may be pirating a copy that works because my legal copy doesn't even though they claim it does... blah.