Archived News starting from 09-17-2005 and earlier
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Just got back from the
Microsoft PDC 2005 (Professional Developers Conference) in Los Angeles and it was an impressive event. Over 5,000 developers attended which filled a football-field sized room nicely for the keynote. The keynote consisted of videos and demos of the next Windows client (Vista a.k.a Longhorn) which successfully titillated all nerd senses. You can search my archives for how many times I've used "titillated" as a testament to how exciting it was. The event centered on Vista and the associated technologies for developers. Avalon (WPF) is the new presentation layer that will make Windows look like a Mac and Indigo (WCF) is the new communications layer that will help us developers make even more reliable applications. Most notable about WPF is the use of xaml to control styling and display (think CSS for windows apps). Instead of coding the design into the app you can create a generic application and "skin" it with different xaml files. WCF brings better reliability and of course less code required to get more done. The new "Windows Sidebar" to be shipped with Vista (and supposedly available as a download for XP) uses "
Gadgets" that can dock on the bar or float around. It's not a new idea, but when Vista ships with it the developers who have Gadgets for sale will be very rich for the first few years while everyone else catches up. Free food everywhere, free stuff from vendors, hands-on labs and proof-of-concept demos were going on the whole time while we tried to see as many learning sessions as possible. A short flirtation with a $200 iMate JasJar had me all excited about Windows Mobile 5, but since Verizon has a hold on me for another 2 years and they don't support the JasJar's GSM protocol I had to decline, but that's a whole other update.
Every year my
fellow Cougar owners head to Ipperwash, Ontario for camping and some beach time. Drinking features heavily at this event, and
this year I decided to mix soy milk and vodka for a drink that had the unexpected effect of prolonging my intoxication through the morning despite the fact consumption stopped at 10:00pm. If you're ever short on cash, this may be an experiment to try. After a night of annoying everyone over 40 at the campground, we headed to the beach and proceeded to park our cars next to and in the lake. It's one of the few beaches you can drive on which of course also means do doughnuts on. Having upset campers and beach goers equally we decided to wrap up the event and head home.
I was recently sent
this photo of someone who cut an AGP card to fit a PCI slot. I then found
the original post and am about 80% convinced it's just a hoax. Manufacturers usually put big bright yellow paper on top of the card stating how it installs to help anyone with this type of learning disability. It's still entertaining and a good photo to pass around to your fellow geeks. On a completely unrelated note, those of you hooked on
Microsoft MCE like myself have a new piece of hardware to blow your money on: the
MCE Keyboard. Here's a
review to get your loins soiled.
Wondering why so many gas stations around me are closing/remodeling, I think I may have found the answer. Some gas pumps are unable to display a price higher than $2.99 / gallon. With recent amounts of $3.15 or more stations are now requiring an upgrade. Whether my detective work is correct or not, it's an interesting read:
gas price article.
In my last update I alluded to hardware failure on my new
NEUTRON system. Today I found out the true cause of the failure. My cheap $50 case has an LED light that illuminates the front. The wire had become loose and occasionally grounded out, causing the power supply to short. After disconnecting the LED I've successfully played over an hour of intense 3D gaming with no hardware lockups at all. 64-bit Windows, however, still sucks donkeys in my opinion, due entirely to the lack of vendor driver support and no visible advantage other than geek points. I expect I'll be reloading a 32-bit OS in the near future.
Lastnight was the
farewell party for my resident co-worker who left for Mississippi today to face Hurricane Katrina. The party planner called for an early LAN party followed by a standard alcoholic stupor party. Unfortunately Keith had to get his hair done during the LAN party so he was absent, which caused it to spill over into the drunken stupor creating an outright brohaha. Lessons learned include absolute chronological seperation of LAN and drunken parties, hosting of drunken parties on Fridays rather than Saturdays, and no LAN party will span less than 6 hours. I also learned that 64-bit windows and/or hardware are not all they're cracked up to be, resulting in a crushing downtime during the LAN.
Tonight marks the cutover from
PROTONX to
PROTON server. This site is now running on the newly configured machine. Processor speed, memory and storage are all more than double what they were before, plus it's now in a
sweet new case that says DIGITAL all over it. The
Cougarfest Archive which was the excuse for my upgrades is now parsing thumbnails at ungodly speed. I spent over 2 hours configuring and testing everything, but if you have a domain or space on this server take some time to test everything and make sure I didn't miss anything (PuckPuck you owe me your DB password!). I'll have the old PROTONX server on hand for a few months just in case something went wrong, but so far everything looks fantabulous. Now for my hardware showoff plug:
| Old System (PROTONX) |
|
New System (PROTON) |
| Oper System: | Win Server 2003 Ent SP1 |
|
Oper System: | Win Server 2003 Ent SP1 |
| Web Server: | IIS 6.0 |
|
Web Server: | IIS 6.0 |
| Processor: | Pentium II 933Mhz |
|
Processor: | Athlon XP 3200 |
| Memory: | 512 MB |
|
Memory: | 1024 MB |
| HDD: | 60 GB |
|
HDD: | 120 GB |
| Databases: | MySQL 4.0.15, ODBC 3.525 |
|
Databases: | MySQL 4.1.13, ODBC 3.627 |
| Languages: | ASP.net 1.1.4322 |
|
Languages: | ASP.net 1.1.4322 |
| Perl 5.8.0, PHP 4.3.3 |
|
| Perl 5.8.7, PHP 4.4.0 |
The
scheduled upgrade of my server had me on a hunt for hardware. Instead of taking the easy route and buying another 32 bit system to replace the server, I decided to complicate my life and upgrade my primary desktop to 64. Why? Because all the hip kids are going 64 and I have to stay cool. I'll cycle down the old 32 bit hardware to create my new server. This results in double the work which of course means double the pleasure, and wasted time. That out of the way, I settled on a
939 Socket Motherboard since it's the latest and greatest, which meant I could only afford an Athlon 64 3200+ processor. I then went through the nightmare of a WinXP 64 install with 80% beta drivers and very little support. Unless you enjoy wasting time like myself, I don't recommend XP 64 yet. I have yet to see any noticeable difference other than the "64 bit edition" text on all the OS screens, but I'm
fully 64 now and that's what counts for geek points (don't pay attention to all the stuff in c:\Program Files (x86))! I ran various 3D games with the same speed as before, so either the 32-bit emulator is really good or the game runs native 32 or 64 in DirectX mode. Stay tuned for the server upgrade followup.
Yesterday I
replaced the bumper on my Cougar which was
torn off at Cougarfest.
EternalOne was kind enough to donate an old one so the part cost was free, but it has the drawback of holes from the front licence plate bracket. I decided to mount the bracket rather than leave two holes exposed, which meant I needed a front plate. Since I had a Ford car show today I went with
this one which is admitedly cheesy. I'll probably put an expired Florida plate on sometime in the hopes I'll get pulled over by a cop. The Ford plate apparently did some good as I won first in my class (1985-Present) at the
show. I also met a fellow Ranger owner who supercharged his truck including a water injection system.
Recently, Keith
moved in for a temporary stay before his relocation to Missitucky. He setup his belongings, focusing first on his computer as any normal geek does, and settled into the mother-in-law suite of my house. Shortly afterwards, however, strange things started happening. Lights mysteriously turn themselves on, a 3-mile lead on a biking trail suddenly winds up with him in front, Gatorade is sold for 1¢ with purchase of another, and finally yesterday solid proof of his shenanigans turned up on the
gnome cam. The only explanation for the image sequence below is that Keith is of extra-terrestrial origin, and not just another typical southerner.
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