The headline tells the story of this Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Severe system performance problems occur on a Windows Vista or Windows XP-based computer after you install HP printer software, version 11 (Microsoft KB960673)

To be honest, I don't know if I've ever seen this problem in the real world. "On a Windows Vista or Windows XP-based computer, you install the HP Customer Participation version 11 software that is included with Hewlett-Packard's new printers. After you do this, you may experience an overall slowing of your computer performance because of an error in this application."

But I know that HP has been doing a terrible job of supplying software with their printers for the last few years, so this is just an extreme example of a bigger problem. HP's installation and uninstallation programs take waaaay too long, they install useless and unrequested services to monitor registration and ink cartridge status and software updates and customer satisfaction and phases of the moon, and if you're lucky you can also print. Typically there are no options during setup to reduce the amount of clutter installed from the CD. Sometimes (but not always) there are simpler drivers on the HP web site for people willing to take manual control of the process.

The result is that I'm not too keen on HP printers lately, because the quality of the hardware doesn't matter if the software brings down your computer. It's not like HP is the only offender - I've spent hours trying to squash a nasty little Epson status monitor that slows things to a crawl if a shared printer isn't online. The biggest reason to prefer Brother printers for the last couple of years is the simplicity of their software.

Remember one of the important rules for being responsible for your computer: always do a custom install of any software and take the time to understand the options and decline items that don't apply to you (especially unrelated products included because one big company paid another big company - Google Desktop/Google Toolbar/Windows Live Toolbar/Open Office and so many more.) You won't avoid all the unnecessary stuff but you can minimize it that way.

Labels: computers, hardware, printers, software

posted by bruceb at 12/23/2008 01:29:00 AM | permalink

If you don't have enough memory ("RAM") in your computer, it will run very, very slowly. Once you have a reasonable amount of memory, performance won't change very much if you add more. Memory has been so cheap for the last few years that most people don't need an upgrade but I still run into underpowered systems occasionally, usually when someone has complained to me about how slow their computer is.

You can check how much memory is installed by right-clicking on My Computer (WinXP) or Computer (Vista) and clicking on Properties. You'll see the amount displayed there. Typical business computer users should have a minimum of 512Mb RAM for Windows XP and 2Gb (or 2048Mb) for Vista. If you have less, then add more or replace your existing memory sticks with higher capacities and you'll get an instant, noticeable speed boost, typically for less than a hundred dollars.

Memory is easy to install - once you've done it a couple of times, it takes less than a minute. (It's a little unnerving the first time because it takes a harder push than you expect before the tabs click into place to hold the memory.) The difficulty has always been the process of buying the correct type of memory from the hundreds of choices. It would be nice if the industry had settled on generic memory chips that you could pick up at Costco but no luck - it's a blur of different shapes and sizes and speeds and acronyms. I long ago stopped helping people upgrade memory and started sending them to a hardware outlet - even Best Buy! - where there are shelves of inventory and the store can find the part that will work.

There is an online tool that looks genuinely helpful and might even tempt me into doing upgrades again. Crucial, a long-established memory manufacturer, has a memory scanner on its web site that will identify all the details about the memory currently installed on your system and show you the compatible upgrades from its inventory, right down to the available slots and the details of whether the memory sticks have to be purchased and installed in pairs. It's a lovely tool! You can buy directly from Crucial and in no time you'll feel all speedy again.

[Addendum 10/29 10am: My enthusiasm is tempered a bit by the experience of the very first person who tried this and reported back to me - the Crucial scanner confidently proclaimed that his computer has no memory at all and therefore is at its maximum and would he like to buy an upgrade? Sigh. Okay, maybe it works most of the time.]

Labels: computers, hardware, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 10/29/2008 12:32:00 AM | permalink

Some of you are running into unnecessary software included with many USB flash drives. The U3 Launchpad probably seemed like a good idea but I'm not aware of anyone who uses it, and I know a lot of people who find it irritating.

The U3 software is included with many popular models of USB thumb drive, including the SanDisk Cruzer series, some Kingston models, and a host of others. It is occasionally advertised as a feature (the "Kingston U3 DataTraveler"); other times it turns up unannounced.

When a USB drive with U3 is plugged in, the software autoplays and adds an icon by the clock to start the U3 Launchpad, which theoretically allows programs to be run from the USB drive without making any permanent changes to the computer. A U3 device shows up twice in the computer even if the U3 software is not run, identified once as a USB drive and separately as a CD drive for reasons that must make sense to somebody smarter than me.

Theoretically there are some advantages to the U3 features - data can be secured in interesting ways, programs can be run that already know all your favorite settings, and you can use your favorite software without the bother of installing it on strange computers.

Except you can't. Programs won't run on U3 devices unless they've been specially written for that purpose, and the selection is none too compelling. A special version of Firefox will run and there's a U3 version of Roboform, one of the most popular programs for keeping track of passwords and the content of web forms. Actually, there's a good case to be made for carrying the Roboform information with you in a secure way that's easy to access, so Roboform users might want to consider getting the U3 system to work. There's nothing compelling for the rest of us.

There are a handful of reports of problems. Well, more than a handful.

• The extra drive letter is annoying!
• The platform is proprietary, the programs designed for it cost too much, and it hasn't generated enough interest to attract developers.
• Some computers lock up, freeze, or crash to a blue screen (!) when the U3 software is run. The U3 support page helpfully lists six or eight programs you might want to uninstall if your computer explodes when you run U3.
• If you don't have local administrator privileges on the computer, you'll have nothing but trouble and might not be able to properly close programs before pulling out the drive.
• Many people report that the U3 software makes the drive slower, affecting the data transfer speeds. The company denies it and claims to feel just terrible that people are so unfair.

There are lots more criticisms listed here.

The U3 software (and the extra partition on the USB drive) are almost impossible to delete manually. If you just want a USB drive without any of this stuff in your way, you'll have to use the uninstallation tool from U3 (or this specialized removal tool for Sandisk drives.)

Be careful - you'll lose any data on the USB drive when the U3 software is uninstalled and there's no way to reinstall the U3 software later.

You know what? I don't think you'll miss it.

Labels: hardware, software

posted by bruceb at 10/15/2008 01:35:00 AM | permalink

From Paul Thurrott's blog today.

Unbelievable.

I love Dell, I really do. I recently bought that Optiplex, which has been great. So when my dad called this morning and asked about buying a new PC, I told him I could probably get something at Dell for under $500. I headed over to Dell, went back and forth between the Inspiron and Studio desktops and then started configuring an Inspiron 518.

If you've spent any time on Dell.com, you know how this works. They have this nice configurator wizard that walks you through all of the components you can change on the system you're browsing, like the microprocessor, the graphics card, the hard drive, and so on. It's all standard stuff and it works well.

And then I got to this step. Honest to God, Dell.

Select my ... Iron Man Movie??? And it's between the steps for "Printers" and "Speakers." I kid you not.

But seriously. Crapware in the configurator?

People have been doomed to hell for eternity for less than this, Dell. Wake up.

I like the note that you'll be able to play the movie on your TV "through windows media extenders," as if that's something a lot of people will casually take advantage of.

That's not the only merchandising madness going on for this movie, by the way. There are eight different versions of the movie going on sale - every major retailer has a different package, one with bobbleheads, another with a comic book or a steel case or a stained glass window or something else. It's an odd world, isn't it?

Labels: business, computers, hardware, video

posted by bruceb at 10/09/2008 12:29:00 AM | permalink

Running a Vista Media Center Extender in the living room requires a computer in the house running Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate. Your home computer can send your photos and music to the living room without working very hard, so it's quite possible to use the same computer that you're using at your desk.

There is a caveat, though. The most important trick for a Vista Media Center Extender is delivering TV shows to the TV, and your home computer probably isn't ready to do that without an extra bit of hardware to plug in the Comcast cable and act as a TV tuner. Once the hardware is set up, the Vista Media Center software is easy to set up - it automatically identifies your cable provider and channel selection, downloads a program guide, and handles program recording.

There are inexpensive USB devices that add TV tuner functions and are reported to work quite well, but I got an ATI TV Wonder HD-650 for a hundred bucks to put inside the PC, since it seemed to have the fewest trouble reports. In this category, as with so many others, there are always reports of horrible problems on Amazon and the online forums, requiring an intuitive weighing to decide which ones can be discarded because you're luckier or smarter than those people.

When shows are recording and being streamed into the living room, the computer is working a bit harder, enough that it might slow down your work on the computer occasionally. I also wanted to set up the Media Center computer to do some time-consuming, processor-intensive jobs - converting DVDs into files that could be stored on the computer's hard drive and played on the Extender. My desktop computer gets restarted pretty regularly as a side effect of testing too much software, which would play havoc with recording a show and might interrupt somebody's experience in the living room.

That's why a lot of people set up a separate computer that is dedicated to doing the Media Center chores. It can be a home-built PC, if you want to save some money. I opted to buy a Dell Inspiron 530 with a lot of memory, since basic computers are so absurdly cheap. I got a good video card but that's optional - I don't plan to ever have it hooked up to a monitor. It's sitting off in the corner and my interaction with it is all done from my desk using Remote Desktop.

A new dedicated computer and the HP Extender gives me a rock solid foundation for more living room entertainment than I have time for. It looks and sounds fabulous.

One more part of the story before we're done - a few scary notes about audio and video formats tomorrow.

Labels: audio, computers, hardware, photos, video, Vista

posted by bruceb at 9/22/2008 01:39:00 AM | permalink

HP has been creating devices for years to bring Windows Media Center to the living room. There are two new Vista Media Center Extenders being marketed under the "MediaSmart" name that have some very interesting features. The HP MediaSmart Connect is sitting in my living room doing exactly what I was hoping.

The previous living room occupant was HP's Z558 Digital Entertainment Center, a computer running Windows XP Media Center in a box with a full complement of inputs and outputs for audio and video. It was fairly quirky to set up - getting the display to fill the screen took long experimentation, for example, and it wasn't very good at finding media stored on a different computer. It worked for several years but it always ran hot, which eventually doomed it - the proprietary video card died once from overheating and was almost impossible to replace, and the fans have lately been getting louder and louder until they became an unbearable distraction.

There are several new Vista Extenders on the market which overlap in their primary purpose, to bring Vista Media Center to the TV from another computer in the home. HP has developed an HD TV with the MediaSmart technology built into the guts of the TV - an interesting idea that would make setup much more simple if you need a new TV, but it requires a firm belief that the technology running a Vista Media Center Extender will last as long as the TV. I don't know if I would make that bet.

The HP MediaSmart Connect stood out for me, though, when I read some favorable reviews. It's a small box, 8 1/2 inches square and less than two inches tall, and completely silent. It has the right outputs to connect to my TV and audio receiver - HDMI, component video, and analog and digital audio. It has built-in wireless networking but I have a network cable running to the living room so I never had to find out if the wireless connection would be jerky or slow, a frequent complaint. HP is reportedly going to lower the price in the next week, giving it a list price of $299 and a likely street price of $249. (Gadgets like this require exactly the same calculation as software: if you get the wrong thing, it doesn't matter if it was cheap; if you get the right thing, the price is almost irrelevant in the long run.)

The remote control bristles with buttons, since there are just too many functions for it to be simple, but at least the remote is sturdy and solid in the hand, which is not always true of the competitors.

The Vista Media Center experience is satisfying but it would be more or less the same with any Extender. What sets the MediaSmart Connector apart is the proprietary software added by HP.

HP has built an interface that includes seamless access to Vista Media Center in its entirety - but there's also an attractive, simple interface that provides access to photos, music and videos that runs completely apart from Vista Media Center. HP provides optional software to run on the home computers that delivers the photos, music and videos to the MediaSmart Connect. Browsing photos with Vista Media Center is quite nice, for example - thumbnails, the ability to browse by tag or folder name, etc. - but some people will prefer to browse the same photos with HP's software, shown at left. Both views are available at any time.

HP then gave its box one more ability that was important to me: the HP MediaSmart Connect is able to connect to other software running on a home computer in addition to the program supplied by HP. It can display lists of media from any standard UPNP or DLNA server.

That means the HP MediaConnect can display music, photos or video sent around the network by a wide variety of programs, including some of the ones I mentioned yesterday. In my case, that means it connected immediately to the UPNP server built into J River Media Center, the program I depend on to keep my embarrassingly large music library organized. I've spent hours sorting my music by genre and creating playlists and smartlists, and in just a few minutes, there were those playlists on the TV, ready to be played at the click of a button. I started playing one ("Audio -- Recently Imported -- Two Months -- shuffle") and wiped a tear from my eye, because I had never been able to go back and forth elegantly between Windows Media Center and J River Media Center before.

That probably isn't important to you. There are a hundred reasons why this works for me and might not work for you. Maybe you'd be frustrated that the experience is not troublefree - I can't see cover art for music albums, I've wrestled with video formats (that story comes later), and the interface is sometimes a little slow, for example. You might be fiercely interested in streaming high-definition video or 5.1 surround sound, which I can't tell you about because I don't care.

The good parts far outweigh any negatives in our living room. Vista Media Center has a tremendous program guide for live and recorded television that I can reach with a single click of a button. I can browse through thumbnails and start a slide show of last month's family photos. I can play my video and music collection. All of those things are handled by an interface that's easy to navigate from the couch with a single remote control. That's good stuff!

All of this requires a computer in the house doing the work, and some hard experience to discover which formats work and which don't work. I'll tell you more later about how I'm handling those things.

Labels: audio, hardware, network, photos, software, video, Vista

posted by bruceb at 9/19/2008 12:59:00 AM | permalink

Since the market for living room computers never developed, Microsoft decided to focus on "extenders," a different way to deliver media to your television.

Huge numbers of people already have a computer in the house running Windows Vista Home Premium, holding photos and music. An "extender" is a small box for the living room that connects to the computer over a wireless or wired connection to display the photos on the television and play music on the living room speakers. If the computer is set up for it, the extender can also handle all the TV programming and record TV shows like a Tivo. It works exclusively with a remote control - no keyboard or mouse! - and looks great from across the room. Here are some cute animations from Microsoft about how it works.

Extenders are not a new concept, and Microsoft is not the only company offering products that work this way. Apple TV is a box that streams music and video from your computer's copy of iTunes to the living room, hemmed in by Apple's fairly restrictive selection of supported formats and features. There is a rich selection of third party software and hardware that will send streams out onto a home network - Twonky, Tversity, music devices from Roku Soundbridge and Sonos, and much more. Tivo supplies software to send photos and music to the Tivo in the living room. Do-it-yourselfers and gadget freaks and technical types are having a wonderful time squabbling about the pros and cons of various setups.

Microsoft gets more attention in the mainstream because the technology it has chosen is elegant and because, well, because it's Microsoft, I guess. Media Center Extenders are based on a simple concept. The small living room box connects to the computer over the home network and displays the Vista Media Center interface, exactly as if it was running directly on the computer. Under the hood is a specialized version of Remote Desktop, which many businesspeople use to connect to their office computers from home.

All the work is done on the computer, but the computer can stay in the room suited for it. Multiple extenders can be connected to the same computer, and the computer can be used normally while it's sending media to the other rooms. The physical connections to the television for audio and video can be difficult but mating the computer with the extender is pretty straightforward.

Some people already have this technology without knowing it, because an XBox 360 can be a Media Center Extender. Chances are the XBox 360 is already on the home network to get updates and play online, so the only setup involves a bit of fumbling to bring a new blade to life in the XBox dashboard, full of photos and music. Microsoft recently announced that the XBox 360 dashboard would be completely overhauled to make it look like Media Center.

In addition to the XBox 360, there was a first generation of extenders from Linksys and others for Windows XP Media Center Edition, but they were slow and cranky and became obsolete when Microsoft rewrote everything for Vista. A new generation of extenders are now being introduced with some attractive features.

I don't have an XBox 360 - noisy things that fail a lot. (If you're interested, a good article appeared a few days ago about the XBox 360's sad history of hardware problems.) Instead, I'll tell you tomorrow about HP's MediaSmart Connect, which is the best of the extenders on the market now.

Labels: Apple, audio, hardware, Microsoft, network, photos, software, video, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 9/18/2008 12:05:00 AM | permalink

Windows Home Server deserves more recognition. It had a nasty bug that took too long to cure but that's over now and it's back to being the helpful tool that I described a year ago. It offers safe storage of your files and photos,  easy ways to share your photos and other files, and remote access to your computers from anywhere. The best devices - like the HP MediaSmart EX475 - are attractive and easy to set up.

One of the best tricks for Windows Home Server is the way it backs up computers on your home or small business network. Every night, WHS does a backup of each computer in a technically marvelous way that uses a very small amount of storage space. By default, it keeps 3 months of monthly backups, 3 weeks of weekly and 3 days of daily. That gives you a lot of power to recover a file that is accidentally deleted.

The real magic happens if a hard drive fails on one of the computers backed up by the Windows Home Server. This article explains how a marriage was saved by WHS when the blogger's wife had a laptop failure. Here's what he describes:

• A CD is provided with WHS (or downloaded from Microsoft) that can be used to start the computer after the bad hard drive is replaced with a brand new one.
• The software on the CD starts the networking on the failed computer and locates the Windows Home Server.
• The WHS identifies which computer is connecting (probably by the MAC address) and offers to restore the computer.
• The backup image is able to be copied to the computer very quickly, and the computer is immediately usable when the restore is finished - it is literally identical to its state at the time of the backup.

According to the blogger, his wife's laptop was operational 11 minutes after he gave the command to perform the restore.

That's just cool stuff. Vista Business has a similar process called "Complete PC Backup & Restore" but it can't be automated - almost no one knows it's there. Windows Home Server doesn't ask any questions or require any knowledge - it just does the right thing.

You might want a server for your home. We might talk about it for your small offices. There's some good technology here.

Labels: backup, hardware, Home_Server, remote

posted by bruceb at 9/08/2008 12:05:00 AM | permalink

Tough week! Here are the kind of things that fill my days. And bear in mind, these are all stories about software and services that I love dearly - this is the good stuff, these are what I recommend because they're better than the rest!

Client with hosted Exchange mailbox at 1and1.com. Mailbox doesn't connect this morning, so no incoming or outgoing mail. Try it from a different computer, try Outlook Web Access - nothing works. Call tech support in India and get through without delay. "Very sorry! That server is down. The experts are working on it." Any idea when it will come back? "No, I'm sorry. But the experts are working on it." It's been down a day and a half now, still no word.

Putting Jungle Disk on a Windows Home Server for online backups. The process to sign up for Amazon's online storage system is not completely straightforward but I've done it before, I know about the "Access Key ID" and the "Secret Access Key," so I'm in business in short order, except the Jungle Disk software delivers an error message, error 403, "NotSignedUp." There are a few dozen lines of gibberish in the detailed error message but it's clear that Amazon doesn't think the service is set up correctly yet. Log in to the Amazon Web Services portal and there's a message about problems with payment for the account - payment that was set up on an Amazon credit card. Hmm. Spent half an hour wrestling with payment options, putting in one good credit card after another and getting more error messages about payment problems, and just about gave up - I was actually drafting the note to the client about the failure when Amazon showed the service was working just fine, thanks, even though I hadn't actually changed anything for a while. Jungle Disk started doing a backup. What was that about?

Setting up Live Mesh to transfer large files between people working in several locations. Installed it on the client's desktop and laptop, created a folder, it started syncing all over the place, everything was automatic and swell, great stuff! Set up Windows Live IDs for three employees, shared a Live Mesh folder with employee number 1, went to that employee's computer and clicked on the invitation to Live Mesh that appeared promptly in the mailbox. Web site pops up inviting me to "Connect," then "Sign In," then displays a message that Live Mesh is only available in the US and they're happy to put me on a waiting list when it's offered in my country. I looked around. It looked a lot like the US where I was standing. I poked around in the Live Mesh forums and found a suggestion that the Windows Live ID account information needed to be updated with the correct country information so I went over there and found it was completely hosed - no matter how many times I picked "United States" and clicked Apply, the front page would stubbornly complain that no country had been chosen. I could change it to the Virgin Islands - that worked fine! It was only the US that it ignored. I dropped it, wrote off the hour that had been spent fussing with it, went back a couple of hours later, and everything worked right away, Live Mesh installed immediately, no issues at all.

Client with a SonicWall firewall/router and a Small Business Server that hadn't been set up to use Remote Web Workplace or the other features that make SBS so lovable. There were a few odd networking settings on the SonicWall but nothing alarming. I set up port forwarding on the ports that make SBS do its tricks (80, 443, 4125) and bang! the network went down, all Internet traffic stopped, the workstations couldn't connect to the server, couldn't browse or ping anywhere. Spent an hour and a half backing out of anything that I might conceivably have touched, nearly gave a credit card number to SonicWall tech support, when it came back up. Two days later I set up port forwarding in what I swear was exactly the same way and it works like a charm. I still don't have any idea what that was about, but it scared the hell out of me.

Tried to buy licenses online for StorageCraft's remarkable backup program, ShadowProtect. Everything went perfectly, right up until the final "Finish" button when I was told that the billing address for the credit card didn't match the information on file at the bank. Just for fun, I tried three different credit cards at two different addresses - all of them plausible choices, not trying to pull anything. Same message each time. (Just for fun, I logged in to my bank's web site and confirmed that there were six or eight "pending" charges showing on the various cards. They went away eventually.) Couple of days later, went back and the transaction went through immediately. (And this story doesn't really count, because after I dropped them a note that night, the company immediately put me in touch with a reseller who would have sold me the licenses, then had one of the company's business manager follow up with a phone call to make sure the problem was resolved. Nice folks, great software, great support.)

Set up Netgear Rangemax USB wireless adapters on three workstations. Windows XP doesn't have any builtin drivers so the CD is required, and the CD doesn't have the drivers stored separately - the Netgear software has to be installed, which of course demands to take over control of the wireless settings from the perfectly adequate Windows XP wireless controls. The next morning, no one can get online, all the networking is mucked up, I have to travel onsite and get the stupid Netgear software to stop popping up with its incomprehensible dials and control panels and graphs. I couldn't find any way to get the Netgear software to hand control back to Windows - that required removing and reinstalling the software to get the startup dialog to appear again so I could check the box telling the Netgear software to get out of the way. Once I did that, the connections were immediately rock solid.

And so it goes. This is the good guys, the cream of the crop - I've also had battles with spyware and rootkits and the rest. Some weeks are more tiring than others. Back to the news soon, I promise!

Labels: backup, computers, file_sharing, hardware, Home_Server, mail, network, SBS, software, web_services

posted by bruceb at 8/21/2008 01:15:00 AM | permalink

I have a Verizon mobile wireless adapter built into my Dell Latitude D630. I pay sixty bucks a month so I can connect to a reasonably fast EVDO broadband connection from just about anywhere. It's becoming a standard accessory for business travellers who don't want to hassle with conventional wireless.

A few days ago, there was a lengthy delay when I clicked the Connect button - "wait while your equipment is updated," something like that.

It stopped working after that, although I didn't recognize the coincidence for a while. I just knew that this error message came up when I tried to connect.

Here we go again!

• I logged onto the Verizon Wireless web site and confirmed that the account was active and unchanged. The wireless modems have phone numbers associated with them for billing - in the Dell "Mobile Broadband Card Utility" software, click on File / Device Properties to see the phone number.
• Dell distributes the software on the Drivers page for its notebooks, under Communications. I downloaded an updated version and tried to install it. Nope - "the version on your computer is newer." Nuh uh! <sigh> Uninstall the existing software, restart, install the downloaded software, restart. No change.
• Could another change have killed things? I was testing some VPN software that made me suspicious. I had used System Restore to create a restore point just before I put on that VPN software, so let's roll back to that restore point, when the Verizon card was still working. Hmm. Now the Dell Mobile Broadband software is stuck thinking it's partially installed. Okay, one more time - uninstall the Dell software, restart, reinstall, restart.
• No change.
• Big sigh.

Finally, too late, I google "RAS Error 691" and "Error QA920." There are a few frustrated souls out there, with the longest discussion on this page, describing people's miserable experiences with Verizon technical support. It looks like Verizon needs to reset the account, which takes only a couple of minutes after a tech support rep becomes convinced it's necessary.

It's midnight, so tech support isn't answering, and frankly I'm none too excited by the prospect of that conversation.

One of the tips on that page catches my eye - a way to force the device to be re-activated in Verizon's system.

• Log back in to Verizon Wireless web site, go to the page for the device, and find "Activate Phone."
• On the next screen, click on "Activate Equipment."
• On the next screen, pick the phone number assigned to the line and type in a new ESN, one digit different than the correct one. (The ESN is the unique number assigned to the device. In the Dell software, it's also under File / Device Properties.)
• Wait ten minutes.
• Go back and put in the correct ESN. Wait ten minutes.

Push the Connect button and, Voila! Simple as that, the modem connects again.

If the guesses are right in the forum posts, the firmware upgrade kills the device for some people. I'm not aware of any way to avoid the "upgrades" - they seem to happen randomly when I try to connect.

What a pain!

Labels: broadband, computers, hardware, mobile, software, wireless

posted by bruceb at 8/15/2008 12:19:00 AM | permalink

Dell introduced seven new models of Latitude business notebooks today. There are details, videos, and some screen shots on this page.

Here's a partial list of new and improved features:

• Vastly improved battery life, in some cases up to 19 hours.
• Lots of connectivity options - Wi-Fi (802.11n), mobile broadband, WWAN, Ultra-wideband, Bluetooth, WiMAX, GPS. 
• Lots of security options: smart card and fingerprint readers, hardware-based disk encryption, smart card.
• Color options on some models - shiny black, matte black, blue, red.
• Full-frame magnesium alloy construction.

Labels: computers, hardware

posted by bruceb at 8/14/2008 12:39:00 AM | permalink

Let me tell you a scary story.

When we plan our backups, the idea is to have a duplicate copy of our data on something separate from where it is normally stored and used. In theory, it is unlikely that both sources will fail simultaneously.

Even very small businesses would be devastated by a loss of data or an extended network outage. On Monday I had a simultaneous failure of a server and the primary backup device. We were dealing with the potential loss of a lot of data and a long outage indeed.

The firm will live on because there was a secondary backup device.

The moral of the story is: if your data is business critical, pay attention to your backups and use more than one device to hold them.

Fortunately the call this Monday morning does not happen frequently. The server running Small Business Server 2003 in a small law office was not responding.

• The firm's Internet connection runs through a second network card in the server, so no one had Internet access. (That used to be the preferred way to set up Small Business Server. The proliferation of inexpensive firewall devices has changed that and SBS 2008 will not support that setup; instead it will assume that small businesses have a SonicWall or Snapgear firewall/router or something like it.)
• Firm documents were completely inaccessible. Individual My Documents folders could be opened (they're stored on the server but a local copy is stored on the individual workstations using "Offline Files") but they're rarely used - everything important is in the shared "Company" folder.
• Outlook is running in cached mode so all copies could be opened, but of course no mail could be sent or received.
• Specialized programs run from the server were unavailable - Abacus, Timeslips.

A very bad thing.

The server is aging and a little underpowered, running on a single IDE hard drive. The symptoms made me think that the hard drive had failed. I got a replacement and stood ready to restore the server from the backup image.

I could not open the file folder where the backups were stored.

The primary backup device was a Buffalo Terastation Pro II, less than a year old. I've set up several of them, I use one myself - 1Gb network attached storage, with four 250Gb hard drives running in a RAID5 array, meaning if any one of the hard drives fails, the box continues working with no interruption other than a beep to remind you to change the bad drive.

I hooked up my notebook, set the IP address within the range being used by the Terastation - and I couldn't open the file folder on the Terastation.

I opened Internet Explorer and got a login screen to the Terastation's web interface but it would not finish loading the main screen so I could use any of the Terastation's built-in tools.

The next two hours were spent trying to talk to the Terastation - confirming IP addresses, checking firewall settings, hooking the Terastation up to my office network in case it wanted a working DHCP or WINS server, trying to do soft resets, pulling various combinations of the hard drives, and a lot of other things. At the end of that time it threw up a "Kernel error" message on its little LCD screen and nothing I did gave me any hope that it would recover. Sure, I'll call Buffalo for warranty support tomorrow but that wasn't going to help a law office that was completely down.

We had also been doing backups to external hard drives on Thursday night, and swapping between two external USB hard drives every Friday.

I was able to use the external hard drive to restore the server to life as of Thursday night at midnight. Documents created or edited on Friday are lost but Outlook is completely up to date - all changes on Friday were synced from the offline copies, and Exchange Defender delivered all mail that arrived while the server was down.

Do you appreciate why I was sweating? If we hadn't had that second backup device, we'd have been left staring at each other with nothing to do but sharpen knives - seppuku in my case, murder in my client's case.

I've got some Small Business Server clients that are not currently using two different backup devices. I'll be contacting them to urge them to buy more external hard drives or an NAS or whatever will provide extra redundancy.

If you've got a single external hard drive for your computer, get another one and rotate them.

If you're backing up onto CDs, buy an external hard drive and start using it for backups - and occasionally keep backing up onto the CDs!

Look into online backups, but also use a local device.

Backup backup backup! I hate losing data!

My guess is that the hard drives in the Terastation are just fine and the failure is deeper in the hardware. (The Terastation was working at least until Friday night. There was no indication of a power surge or something else that took out both the server and the Terastation. This is a very weird coincidence.) A Google search turns up lots of complaints about the Terastation. I take that with a grain of salt because every device has generated a score of complaints that could be turned up in a Google search.

There is a part of this story that is full of magic and light and goodness. The software used by this client is StorageCraft ShadowProtect, and it is just swell. I'll tell you about it someday.

Labels: backup, computers, hardware, network, SBS

posted by bruceb at 8/05/2008 01:40:00 AM | permalink

On the assumption that my choices are endlessly fascinating to an ever-growing number of people - really, really bored people - I've added a page with details about the hardware and software that I use here at the high-tech headquarters of bruceb consulting. I'll try to keep it up to date. Heck, my computers are happy - you could do worse than follow my example in precise detail.

Click here for all the prurient details!

Labels: audio, backup, broadband, bruceb, computers, file_sharing, hardware, mobile, phone, photos, printers, SBS, security, software, video, web_services

posted by bruceb at 7/30/2008 01:02:00 AM | permalink

This is getting to be an old, old story.

The story is: a manufacturer forces unwanted software on consumers, and the software slows down or breaks perfectly nice devices.

This time, the villain is HP. The device is HP's version of a Windows Home Server, called the HP MediaSmart Home Server.

Microsoft finally delivered an important update for the Windows Home Server software, potentially a turning point for devices that should be better known and more widespread.

HP released an update at the same time for the proprietary software that runs on top of WHS, enhancing some of its features and controls. So far, so good.

At the same time, HP is also automatically downloading two addins - McAfee security software for Windows Home Server, and third-party software for media streaming.

Windows Home Server installs a little icon down by the clock on each networked computer to report on the "network health." If a hard drive on the server fails, or a backup isn't completed, it turns red and shouts that the network is "AT RISK!"

HP's automatic download of the addins causes the icon to shout that the network is "AT RISK!" The reason for the warning? The addins have been downloaded but they have not yet been installed.

Does that sound to you like your network is "at risk"? It doesn't to me. Maybe that's the only way that HP can call attention to this wonderful gift, but it's annoying and scary.

It gets worse.

The media streaming software is unnecessary for many or most people using the server, and I've seen criticism that it's poorly chosen in any case. There are reports that it can take more than 24 hours of disk thrashing to complete an index of media files, during which time the server console is unusable.

And sure enough, McAfee lives down to its reputation. If you install it, multiple reports confirm that it will slow your server to a crawl, making the console slow or crashing it. Here's one place where this is being discussed, and here's another. HP is forcing down a trial subscription to a paid service. It's a long trial - 7 months - but it's just a trial, nonetheless.

HP's MediaSmart servers are shipped with an adequate amount of RAM to support the WHS software, but nowhere near enough to support these addins.

The addins can be uninstalled, but wouldn't it be nice if we weren't put in this position in the first place? As I've said before: You already know about the bad guys, but in the long run, we can't trust the good guys either.

Labels: computers, hardware, Home_Server

posted by bruceb at 7/29/2008 12:18:00 PM | permalink

From a column today by Ed Bott:

"Sony is finally taking on its crapware problem. For the past two months, I've been using an astonishingly light and agile Sony VAIO notebook and loving every minute of it. The best part of all was that this machine was absolutely, completely, unequivocally crapware-free, which meant I was able to be productive within a few minutes of unboxing.

"That's a huge switch for Sony, which has taken a beating as 'the poster child for negative experiences' with new PCs running Windows Vista. And it was a happy surprise for me. When I wrote about my hands-on experiences with two older VAIO notebooks earlier this year, I called it a 'truly miserable experience.' It took a crapware-cleansing clean install to fix a 2007-vintage Sony notebook, and I spent hours replacing outdated drivers and removing unwanted software from a 2008 model (if you haven't read that installment, see Fixing Windows Vista, one machine at a time).

"In a March interview, Sony Vice President Mike Abary assured me that Sony was 'listening and taking action.' The first phase, he said, was a new program called Fresh Start, in which Sony promised to remove all trialware and unnecessary software for customers who chose the Fresh Start option as part of a custom-configured VAIO. Sony announced initially that it would charge $49.99 for the privilege of ordering a crapware-free PC and then quickly reversed its decision.

"In early May, I ordered an ultraportable notebook from Sony's website, configuring it to order and choosing the Fresh Start option (no extra charge).

"The notebook arrived a few days later, and I've been using it since then for a variety of real-world tasks. The bottom line? Sony's Fresh Start delivers exactly what it promises: a crapware-free PC. It runs Windows Vista remarkably well, and the hardware has been a sheer delight to use."

Details further on in the article about performance, battery life, drivers, and where to buy a Vaio with the Fresh Start option (online only - a Vaio purchased in a local store will come loaded with crap).

Labels: computers, hardware, software, Vista

posted by bruceb at 7/21/2008 02:13:00 PM | permalink

Small Business Server 2008, the successor to SBS 2003, will ship on November 12. The first few months will reveal any lingering issues and clarify the procedure for migrating to the new platform from SBS 2003. In early 2009, I'll be talking about it to my clients with SBS 2003 running on servers that are more than three years old - it will be time to refresh the hardware that runs the business, part of my long-time belief that it is always preferable to replace a computer on your schedule rather than the computer's breakdown schedule.

In some ways, SBS 2008 sounds similar to SBS 2003 - a single server for small businesses to handle file storage and Exchange mailboxes, plus remote access and some other nice features. Many of the differences result from six years of progress on the underlying products - Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Sharepoint Services 3.0, and more. That steps up the hardware requirements - new 64-bit boxes with lots of memory are required. Existing SBS 2003 servers will be relegated to backup roles or retired. Here are some notes I wrote about SBS 2008 a few months ago.

There are architectural differences based on the increasing need that all businesses feel for 24/7 reliable computing. Small businesses have frequently relied on a single server, creating a single point of failure that can paralyze the entire business. That will still be true in part, but the Premium edition of SBS 2008 will include a license to run Windows Server 2008 on a second server and will include SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition, making it far more cost-efficient to run a line-of-business application on a second server. Law offices, for example, will be more likely to move their case management or accounting programs onto a second server, leaving the SBS 2008 server free to focus on file and printer sharing and running the huge, active mailboxes that we're all accumulating.

SBS 2008 will integrate deeply with Office 2007 and Microsoft's online Office services, making it easier for small businesses to begin using online file storage and collaboration tools.

Windows Live OneCare for Server is a new product that will be included with SBS 2008. Details are hazy but at a minimum it will provide antivirus and spyware protection for the servers, currently difficult to accomplish with SBS 2003 (third party products are available but they are quirky and frequently too complex for a small business relying on an offsite consultant). Apparently the server OneCare program will finally allow central management of OneCare on the individual desktops and facilitate backups of files on the individual computers.

It's going to be an interesting year. Now that a nearly final version of SBS 2008 is available for testing, I've just ordered a server that I'll be using for learning and breaking things and in general, feeling that my brain is too small.

Small businesses that have not yet installed a server do not have to wait; it's possible to buy a license for SBS 2003 with "Software Assurance" that will minimize the cost of the licenses to upgrade to SBS 2008 next year. Adding a server with SBS 2003 can be a tremendously important step for a growing business! In a slowing economy, though, businesses that want to postpone taking that step would be well advised to plan on next spring for their new servers.

Labels: business, computers, hardware, Microsoft, SBS, security

posted by bruceb at 7/18/2008 12:56:00 AM | permalink

[Originally posted November 26, 2007]

Thinking about a new computer - home, home office, small business? Let me give you some generalizations that will help you get started. (As always, gamers will be looking for faster processors and hard drives, more memory, and - particularly important - choosing from an array of high-end video cards. Notebook computers also require consideration of size and weight, which will trump some of the considerations below.)

• PROCESSOR Intel's Core 2 Duo processors are significantly better than the other Intel and AMD processors. Within the Core 2 Duo line, at some point there's a step up to a 4Mb L2 cache, another bit of technical wizardry that's worth a hundred dollars or so. That being said, all of the processors on the market will serve you well - processor speed is no longer the defining point of a computer.
• MEMORY 2Gb of RAM is mandatory for a new computer - it's required for a satisfying experience, and it's sufficient for most people.
• VIDEO It is essential to look for a video card with 256Mb of RAM! There are many more differences between video cards than that but you'll get what you need if you just focus on that single number. If your new computer doesn't have a 256Mb video card, you'll be disappointed in ways large and small - perhaps you might just not be able to turn on Vista's eye candy, but at worst the computer's entire performance will be compromised.
• HARD DRIVE You'll get lots of storage space with any new computer, but the speed of the hard drive is a new and important consideration. The speed is measured in RPM; you want a speed of 7200RPM or above. If you see 5400RPM, avoid it - the whole system will be slow regardless of the other specs. (You'll run into this problem more often on notebooks.)
• OPERATING SYSTEM Vista Business is the best choice for most people; get Vista Home Premium if you're interested in one of its specific features, but be aware of what you're missing. Vista Ultimate is a safe choice because it includes all features.
• The general answer to your question about Vista is: Yes, it will ________. (Fill in the blank: work; run your programs; network with your other computers; work with your printer/scanner/camera; etc.)
• OPTICAL DRIVE Make sure you get a drive that can read DVDs - software is being distributed on DVDs now.
• SOFTWARE If you're ordering from Dell, you can get Microsoft Office preinstalled at an attractive price. Other manufacturers almost never include MS Office. Make sure your budget is ready for the $150 Student Edition of Office if the computer will be used at home, or $300 and up for the standard versions.
• SECURITY Your first job with a new computer is removing unnecessary software installed by the computer maker - and the most important products to remove will be any preinstalled software from Norton or McAfee. Windows Vista has a very capable firewall and adware/spyware protection, so you're safe while you decide what to install instead. I continue to recommend Windows Live OneCare for comprehensive protection.

Happy shopping!

Labels: computers, hardware, Office, security, Vista

posted by bruceb at 7/01/2008 12:19:00 AM | permalink

[Originally posted October 30, 2007]

I wish we could count on the software and hardware vendors to play fair and treat us well, but it's not happening. We have to take responsibility for our computers.

When Windows XP and Vista are installed on freshly formatted hard drives, they are secure, rock-solid, and fast. Both operating systems are loaded with features. Vista has a mail program, an address book, a calendar, voice recognition, rich support for multimedia, built-in CD/DVD burning, several backup options (including automatic retention of previous versions of files), and much more.

Mac OS 10.5 offers a virtually identical list of features and a similar secure, stable, fast environment.

Yet Macs have a reputation of being easy to use and "just working" while Windows computers have a reputation of being slow and unstable. The reason has little to do with the merits of the operating systems.

Other than hooking up a printer, many Mac users add almost nothing to their computers. They use the applications supplied with the computer, which work well.

If you installed Windows Vista on a freshly formatted hard drive, installed Microsoft Office 2007, hooked up a printer, and added almost nothing else, your computer would just work - elegant and stable and fast.

It's hard to do that. It's up to you to stay as close to it as possible.

Everything conspires to interfere with your computer experience - every piece of software that adds a hundred registry entries, every startup process, every online service that installs a new ActiveX control, every printer monitor and registration reminder and duplicative function and unnecessary utility program. Software and hardware manufacturers make poor decisions about how often you want to see their logo or how much you want badly-designed free programs or how much you care about their partnerships with unrelated companies or how much you need their version of a program that duplicates a function built into Windows.
All too quickly, our Windows computers take three minutes to be usable after our desktop appears. Our programs crash. The system freezes.

Windows is rock solid out of the box. It stays that way for a remarkably long time. Whose responsibility is it when our experience starts to deteriorate?

I'm not talking about blame. There's plenty of that to go around.

The responsibility is ours. No one else is going to help us. For better or worse, Microsoft has created an environment where other manufacturers can contribute. Few of them are doing it well. Few of them are looking only for your best interests and smooth computing experience.

• Our computers arrive with too much preinstalled software. Look at the list in Add/Remove Programs, find out what the unfamiliar names are, and remove the ones that won't be used.
• Don't install programs unless you are confident that you know what they are and that you will use them to accomplish something you couldn't do before with another program already installed.
• Always do a "custom" installation. Watch every checkbox and don't install anything that isn't necessary to use the program to do what you're going to do.
• Never install a system utility or security software unless you thoroughly understand why it's necessary. Windows is able to be secure and do its own housekeeping without much help.

There are only two choices for happy computing. One is to become knowledgeable about what you install. That allows you to explore the rich world of new devices, programs and online services with a minimum of side effects, while still being conservative enough to avoid harming your computer.

The other is to buy only the simplest hardware accessories and install as little new software as possible. If your computer can't already do it, maybe you should assume it can't be done. We live in a world where too many gadgets don't work and too many programs are badly written.

The third alternative is the one that doesn't work - buy devices on a whim, avoid reading instructions or web sites or even the descriptions on a box, install whatever is presented on a setup CD, click OK whenever a website asks permission, and expect everything to just work. You already know about the bad guys, but in the long run, we can't trust the good guys either.

Labels: Apple, computers, hardware, Microsoft, software, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/30/2008 12:12:00 AM | permalink

You probably have a router or firewall device on your network - the little box that your DSL or cable modem plugs into. Make sure you've changed the default password on the router!

Virtually every router is designed to display a control panel when you put in its IP address. When you set up the router, it probably asked you to change the default password. It's a chore that needed to be done; you should double-check your records to be sure.

You can check for yourself. Click on Start / Run, type in CMD and hit Enter. In the black window, type in

ipconfig

and hit Enter. Make a note of the Default Gateway - something like 192.168.1.1, right?

Then open Internet Explorer and type that address in:

http://192.168.1.1 (or whatever your gateway address is)

You'll be prompted for a login name and password. If it's your network, you should know what that is! Here's two common defaults:

• Linksys: user name blank, password admin
• Netgear: user name admin, password password

Naturally, it's easy to find lists of default passwords for hundreds of routers.

This comes to mind because the researchers found a new twist in some malware recently: if you run the malware by an ill-advised click on a popup window on the Internet, the malware tries to log into the router using a memorized list of default user name and password combinations. If it's successful, the malware changes the router's DNS configuration so all your Internet traffic is passed through the bad guys' network. Here's a Washington Post blog about the exploit.

I haven't run into this in the real world, and you might be protected against it - the malware won't get a chance to run on a system with up to date security software. But it's a precaution that deserves a couple of minutes of attention - just one more way for inventive bad guys to make life difficult.

[Note to my clients: if I set up your network or your router, I took care of this. Go back to work.]

Labels: hardware, network, security

posted by bruceb at 6/26/2008 02:02:00 AM | permalink

I bet you don't know how to turn off your computer.

Lots of people ask me why their computer doesn't turn off when they hit the power button on the front of the case after the system crashes or freezes. Hold the button down for 4-10 seconds. The computer will turn off even if it is otherwise completely unresponsive.

Let's go through a little history to help you understand why that's actually a feature.

Back in the old days, the power button on the case was directly wired to the computer's power supply. Hit the button and bang! the computer went dark and cold. Not only was that a really bad thing when the switch was hit accidentally by your knee, but it also made for some potentially dangerous wiring and frequently made it almost impossible to replace power supplies with soldered connections to the power switch.

Old-timers will recall that the Windows shutdown sequence would end with a screen advising that "it is now safe to shut off your computer." The power button had to be pressed manually to finish turning off the power.

In 1995, Intel introduced the ATX form factor for computer cases, motherboards, and power supplies and for the first time, Windows could shut off the power to a computer. When you click on Start / Shut down / Shut down in Windows XP, Windows closes all your open programs, shuts down running services, and shuts down Windows, and as its final act it tells the power supply to shut the computer's power off completely.

The ATX form factor lends itself to other tricks for low power consumption, leading to a change in Vista: when you click on Vista's power button, the computer goes to sleep by default instead of shutting down completely. You can get it to shut down or restart from the flyout menu on the right. Here's some information about Vista's power management features. If you have trouble with sleep mode, you can change that behavior in Vista's power options console.

All of that leads to the thrilling conclusion: when you push the power button on your desktop computer case or notebook computer, you're not directly turning the power on or off. You're asking the motherboard and the operating system to work with you on whatever they are designed to do.

When the computer is operating normally, pushing the hardware power button in Windows is exactly the same as pushing the onscreen power button. In Windows XP, it starts the normal routine to shut down programs and only then turn off the power. In Windows Vista, it sends the computer to sleep.

If the computer is completely frozen, the motherboard and operating system will not respond to a poke on the power button any more than they will respond to a click on the onscreen Start button. When the power button is held down for 4-10 seconds, though, there is a fallback that will turn off the power regardless of the condition of the operating system or motherboard.

So when you need to shut down and nothing else will work, hold the button down. You'll feel powerful. When you do this for someone else, don't give away the secret. They'll respect you and give you cookies. But don't do it unless absolutely necessary! Computers should always be shut down gracefully whenever possible.

Labels: computers, hardware, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 6/17/2008 12:01:00 AM | permalink

I'm starting to get annoyed when I sit down at a Windows XP computer because it's missing so many things that I take for granted in Vista. I just reformatted a hard drive and installed Windows XP from scratch for a client and it required far more work than it would have been to do a fresh install of Vista on newer hardware.

Dell and the other manufacturers will stop selling Windows XP on new computers at the end of June (with some weird exceptions), and I don't think I'm going to miss it much.

• Vista's integrated Start menu search is invaluable. I haven't looked through the Start menu in ages - it's completely natural to click Start and type in a few letters of a program, then click on it. It's far easier than hunting through XP's typically huge cascading menus.
• The breadcrumb bar in Windows Explorer makes it possible to jump around in a way that simply isn't possible in XP.
• Vista's Aero interface is more than just eye candy - the live previews of items on the task bar or in the Alt-Tab task switcher provide instant feedback that can't be duplicated in XP.
• The shadow copy that Vista Business makes twice a day has saved me several times when I've been able to roll back to a previous version of a file or recover one that had been accidentally deleted. And Vista's backup programs are top notch.

And there's more - new features, new ways of working that have become second nature. Whether it's doing searches, or speech recognition, or the snipping tool, or using the new performance and monitoring tools - a fair amount of what I do these days is only possible in Vista.

Setting up the Windows XP computer reminded me how many things are required before Windows XP becomes acceptable.

• A lengthy trip to Dell's web site to accumulate the hardware drivers required. After installing Windows XP and Service Pack 3, the network card, video card, audio, and modem were all still dead until I downloaded the drivers from a different computer and brought them over on a USB drive. (The hardware drivers supplied with the computer on a Dell CD were woefully out of date, of course.)
• Outdated programs that have to be removed, even if no third-party programs are installed at all: MSN Explorer, Windows Messenger, Outlook Express.
• Programs that have to be manually installed for minimal security or essential new functions: Windows Defender; Internet Explorer 7; Microsoft Update; Windows Desktop Search. (Do you remember that by default Windows XP Search features a cartoon dog?)
• Changes that are required to avoid irritation: turning off the language bar that appears down by the clock; editing the properties of the desktop and start menu and task bar; and more.

Windows XP runs faster on older computers, and it's good enough. Great! Lots of people should use it.

But there's another measure of performance that is not well understood. After Service Pack 1 and 18 months of compatibility and driver improvements, Vista's performance is identical to or better than Windows XP on new, reasonably well-chosen hardware. ExtremeTech just did some tests and reluctantly reported that Vista out-performed XP on the same hardware. The test results were unambiguous but not enough to stop the author from using the usual supercilious, dismissive tone about Vista, which "of course, has been plagued by criticism . . ." Ed Bott's reaction to the ExtremeTech article makes the point nicely:

"Anyway, the first page was practically a parody of every I-hate-Vista blog post published in the past 18 months, so much so that I almost didn't bother clicking through the whole thing. And even then it took some effort to continue clicking past Page 2 (a mostly cut-and-paste list of features in XP SP3) and Page 3, which offers a mere three paragraphs (shameful) of "observations" about XP SP3.

"It is not until page 5 that the editorial bias begins to crumble, albeit reluctantly, with a pair of graphs and this priceless description:

"'Vista somehow outperformed XP in PCMark05's overall score, but its important subsystem scores (CPU and Memory) were very close to the older operating system.'

"That "somehow" is a nice touch. I found that to pronounce it properly one needs to lift one's nose in the air, just so, and then stretch out the syllables in somehow, the way Thurston Howell III might have done it. "Vista somehow outperformed XP." Makes it appear that the actual improvement in performance when running Vista with SP1 on the same hardware as Windows XP is a fluke. Well played, editors!"

Labels: computers, hardware, Vista, WinXP

posted by bruceb at 5/29/2008 12:35:00 AM | permalink

On a Dell laptop, it is crucial to DISABLE one "power-saving" feature guaranteed to drive you mad.

In Vista's "Power Options" panel, the bottom item on the left is "Dell Internal Network Card Power Management." It is intended to save power by disabling the network card if no network cable is plugged into it. You'll see it in this screen shot.

Invariably the NIC will not wake up again and you won't be able to connect when you plug a cable in at your next stop. It will take you a long time to discover that "Local Area Connection" shows as Disabled.

When this happened to me I gnashed my teeth and rent my garments until I found this setting by accident. Set it to "Always activate on battery" and you won't have to rend your garments.

Labels: computers, hardware, mobile, Vista

posted by bruceb at 5/28/2008 12:01:00 AM | permalink

Vista is very smart about power management! Use the default settings, you might be pleasantly surprised.

As always, the goal is to make a computer more like other appliances - ready to be used within a few seconds after turning it on.

Any computer - Windows XP, Vista, or Mac - will be slow to start and be usable after it has been turned completely off. Realistically, you're looking at a delay of 1-2 minutes after you hit the power switch. Yeah, the desktop appears quickly, but you know you can't really do anything for a while after that.

So the goal is to find a way to leave the computer in a low power state that allows it to come on almost immediately, like a television. These aren't new terms but let's review.

• When a computer goes to sleep, it memorizes what's onscreen and stores it in RAM, then draws just enough power to keep it there. While it's sleeping, the computer uses almost no power and it can wake up almost instantly (5-10 seconds) when a key on the keyboard or a button on the mouse is pressed.
• When a computer hibernates, it memorizes what's onscreen and stores the information on the hard drive, then shuts itself down so that no power whatsoever is being used. When the power button is pressed, it's ready to use within 30-40 seconds.

By default, most Vista desktops go into "hybrid sleep" when the power button by Start is pushed. The computer goes to sleep, but it also puts the information on the hard drive as if it was hibernating. That way it can resume quickly without starting from scratch, even if the power is lost and the "sleep" information in RAM is lost.

Hybrid sleep isn't a good choice for laptops - it requires a lot of hard drive activity to park the hibernation info on the hard drive and it's frequently not necessary since the battery makes it less likely that it will lose the "sleep" memory. I compromise - my laptop goes to sleep when I close the lid or hit the onscreen power button, but it hibernates if I hit the hardware power button. (Hit Start and type in "Power", then click on "Power Options" - the options for closing the lid and hitting the power button are on the left.)

If the laptop is asleep for long enough to use most of the battery, then it wakes up just enough to store the info on the hard drive and go into hibernation.

This is still not bulletproof but it's much more likely to work than ever before. The Vista team is very proud of what they delivered - here's their explanation of what's been done to reduce energy consumption on AC power, maximize battery life, and still speed up the on/off cycle.

Here are a few more tips.

• Windows Live OneCare, like most other security programs, will not bring your computer out of sleep or hibernation to do overnight chores. When your computer wakes up, it may want to do a tuneup and slow things down for a half hour. For some reason OneCare wants to do tuneups on laptops more often than the schedule seems to demand. There's no good answer to this. It can always be cancelled if it's a problem - right-click OneCare's animated icon by the clock and cancel the tuneup.
• If your computer is asleep or hibernating, you cannot access it remotely. If you think you might want to reach your business computer remotely on a Small Business Server network, or if you use LogMeIn or GoToMyPC, don't let it go to sleep.
• If you want the battery to last on your laptop, memorize a couple of things.
• Find the switch that turns the wireless and Bluetooth adapters on and off! Turn off the wireless adapter if you're not using it.
• Use the FN + arrow up and down keys to adjust the brightness, and turn it down if you're on battery. On Dell laptops, use the FN + Auto keys to use Vista's default settings for screen brightness - full brightness on AC power, dim display on battery.

Now go out and sleep and hibernate happily!

Labels: computers, hardware, mobile, Vista