Dan Dar3

Sanyo Eneloop – rechargeable NiMh batteries

2012-01-25T23:55:00.001Z

I use rechargeable batteries in pretty much everything, kitchen clocks, weather station, all sorts of TV and Xbox remotes, photo cameras, anyway a lot of them. I believe it all started for me back in college with my first, red portable cassette player and two blue Varta rechargeables, about 15 years ago – for younger audience, that is before we all had internet at home :-)

I always keep two boxes, one with charged batteries ready for change, and another one for discharged batteries. Problem is that if I charge them as soon as they discharge, by the time I get to use them, they are probably a quarter to half discharged - and I always try to refresh them and keep an eye on energy taken in, using a smart Technoline iCharger charger.

What I find annoying is having to change the batteries in the boiler remote control and re-program the thing every few months, or changing the batteries in my camera, and having to take a few spares with me (4 x AA Cannon camera).

Although I heard about low self-discharge batteries a while ago (didn’t even know they were called Sanyo Eneloop), I couldn’t find them to buy and to be honest I didn’t quite believe the marketing hype. Then a few months ago I spotted them on batterycity.ie and amazon.co.uk and decide to give them a try. And now I believe they are quite right – my missus, a photo amateur, confirmed as well that the Eneloops are keeping for longer, even if the ones I have (HR-3UTGA) are only rated at 1900 mAh and they consistently charge least that (Duracell 2450 mAh and Sanyo 2700 mAh are also decent batteries).

http://www.eneloop.info/home/performance-details/self-discharge.html

Anyways, that was it, thought I might share this with you, if you are already using rechargeable batteries give them a try, and if you are not, get yourself a good intelligent charger and a couple of these to start - they are priced pretty much like regular rechargeables and you’ll be throwing a lot less batteries in the bin.

Microsoft Global Foundation Services (GFS) - DataCenter Tour

2011-12-20T07:59:00.001Z

PeerBlock

2011-12-10T17:27:00.001Z

http://www.peerblock.com/

PeerBlock lets you control who your computer "talks to" on the Internet. By selecting appropriate lists of "known bad" computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been "hacked", even entire countries! They can't get in to your computer, and your computer won't try to send them anything either.

How LCD monitors work

2011-11-26T01:52:00.001Z

Windows 8 – Accessing data in ISO and VHD files

2011-11-24T01:13:00.001Z

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video.

Accessing data in ISO and VHD files
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/08/30/accessing-data-in-iso-and-vhd-files.aspx

Geekbench

2011-11-23T23:27:00.001Z

http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/

Geekbench provides a comprehensive set of benchmarks engineered to quickly and accurately measure processor and memory performance. Designed to make benchmarks easy to run and easy to understand, Geekbench takes the guesswork out of producing robust and reliable benchmark results.

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DanDar3's Geekbench 2 Results
http://browse.geekbench.ca/user/DanDar3/geekbench2

Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011

2011-11-06T22:35:00.001Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie

printf(“Goodbye, Dennis Ritchie”);

Parsing large XMLs with XmlReader and XmlSerializer (C#)

2011-11-06T00:22:00.001Z

Having discovered the other week XmlSerializer (used it to save / read application settings in XML) I went back to another application I’m writing for work that analyses Microsoft SQL Server Profiler trace XMLs and try to use with that as well.

Now these XMLs are fairly large, from hundreds of MBs to GBs. I used XmlReader in the first place so it didn’t load the whole XML in memory, but the program was fairly slow with large ones and the code was about 2 or 3 pages, testing for node names, attributes and all that.

Decided to rewrite it using XmlSerializer, and to my surprise the performance increased quite a bit (true, it was maybe mostly due to the way I wrote it the first place with one loop that did xmlReader.Read() and then checking for IsStartElement() and all that spaghetti that needs to go with it), while making the code much cleaner.

Microsoft SQL Server Profiler XMLs look like this, with Event entries, each with multiple Column elements:

  1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
  2: <TraceData xmlns="http://tempuri.org/TracePersistence.xsd">
  3:   <Header>
  4:     [...]
  5:   </Header>
  6:   <Events>
  7:     <Event id="45" name="SP:StmtCompleted">
  8:       <Column id="11" name="LoginName">USERNAME</Column>
  9:       <Column id="15" name="EndTime">2011-09-12T13:20:45.813-07:00</Column>
 10:       <Column id="10" name="ApplicationName">Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver</Column>
 11:       <Column id="12" name="SPID">190</Column>
 12:       <Column id="14" name="StartTime">2011-09-12T13:20:45.813-07:00</Column>
 13:       <Column id="16" name="Reads">2</Column>
 14:       <Column id="18" name="CPU">0</Column>
 15:       <Column id="1" name="TextData">SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "TABLENAME"</Column>
 16:       <Column id="9" name="ClientProcessID">6896</Column>
 17:       <Column id="13" name="Duration">105</Column>
 18:       <Column id="17" name="Writes">0</Column>
 19:     </Event>
 20:     [...]
 21:   </Events>
 22: </TraceData>
 23:

The Event.cs class for Event nodes:

  1: using System.Collections.Generic;
  2: using System.Xml.Serialization;
  3: 
  4: namespace XmlSerializerTest
  5: {
  6:     [XmlRoot(ElementName="Event", Namespace="http://tempuri.org/TracePersistence.xsd")]
  7:     public class Event
  8:     {
  9:         [XmlAttribute("id")]
 10:         public string ID { get; set; }
 11: 
 12:         [XmlAttribute("name")]
 13:         public string Name { get; set; }
 14: 
 15:         [XmlElement("Column")]
 16:         public List<Column> Columns { get; set; }
 17:     }
 18: }
 19:

The Column.cs clas for Column nodes:

  1: using System.Xml.Serialization;
  2: 
  3: namespace XmlSerializerTest
  4: {
  5:     [XmlRoot(ElementName="Column", Namespace="http://tempuri.org/TracePersistence.xsd")]
  6:     public class Column
  7:     {
  8:         [XmlAttribute("id")]
  9:         public string ID { get; set; }
 10: 
 11:         [XmlAttribute("name")]
 12:         public string Name { get; set; }
 13: 
 14:         [XmlText]
 15:         public string Value { get; set; }
 16:     }
 17: }

And the main parser code (XmlParser.cs) as is simple as:

  1: using System;
  2: using System.Collections.Generic;
  3: using System.Xml;
  4: using System.Xml.Serialization;
  5: 
  6: namespace XmlSerializerTest
  7: {
  8:     class XmlParser
  9:     {
 10:         public static List<Event> Parse(String fileName) 
 11:         {
 12:             // Init
 13:             List<Event> events = new List<Event>();
 14: 
 15:             // Parse...
 16:             using (XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(fileName))
 17:             {
 18:                 // XmlSerializer...
 19:                 XmlSerializer EventSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Event));
 20: 
 21:                 // Parse XML - "Event" nodes...
 22:                 while (xmlReader.ReadToFollowing("Event"))
 23:                 {
 24:                     Event eventObject = (Event) EventSerializer.Deserialize(xmlReader.ReadSubtree());
 25:                     if (String.Equals(eventObject.Name, "SP:StmtCompleted"))
 26:                     {
 27:                         //
 28:                         events.Add(eventObject);
 29:                     }
 30:                 }
 31: 
 32:                 // Cleanup...
 33:                 xmlReader.Close();
 34:             }
 35: 
 36:             // Return value
 37:             return events;
 38:         }
 39:     }
 40: }

Everything is parsed for you by the XmlSerializer.Deserialize() – yes, there may be an overhead in parsing stuff that otherwise maybe you were interested in, like columns you didn’t want in the first place and could add up in memory, but if code readability and maintainability is more important, to reduce memory I guess you could go and trim them from the list after the elements are parsed.

The above code goes through a 250 MB file in about 6 seconds on my Intel P8600 laptop (measured with StopWatch) and it uses about 37 MB of RAM (private bytes).

I guess the interesting parts are the XmlReader, XmlReader.ReadToFollowing(), XmlReader.ReadSubtree(), XmlSerializer.Deserialize() and the Xml annotations in the Event and Column classes – I’m not going to go into details on those, there’s plenty examples on the web and documentation on MSDN.

The reason why I posted it in the first place was that I thought it might be of help to someone else learning C# like myself, and see a working example and what makes it tick.

Eclipse – FindBugs plugin

2011-11-02T01:24:00.001Z

http://findbugs.sourceforge.net

FindBugs™ - Find Bugs in Java Programs

A program which uses static analysis to look for bugs in Java code. It is free software, distributed under the terms of the Lesser GNU Public License. The name FindBugs™ and the FindBugs logo are trademarked by The University of Maryland. As of July, 2008, FindBugs has been downloaded more than 700,000 times.

My first week with Windows 8 Preview…

2011-10-30T01:19:00.000+01:00

By now I installed Windows 8 Preview on all my PCs, laptops, UMPC and even my work laptop, and now have been using it for over a week for both personal and work.

What I can say is that I like it – it seems to be slightly faster and a bit more responsive than Windows 7, with very little problems – one thing I noticed it that the Explorer hangs sometimes when creating new folders or after copying files and it hangs all Explorer instances as well as desktop. Anyway, it’s a preview I’m sure it will get fixed in the next release (rumours say sometime next year in January around CES).

What have I used with W8? Let’s see – Visual Studio 2010 Express (2011 Preview only allows for Metro style apps, I need the earlier version to develop my work tools in C#), Eclipse 3.7.1 x32, TortoiseSVN 1.7, Juniper Network Connect 7, AT&T Connect Participant 9.0.82, Citrix Receiver 3.0, Google Chrome 15, Notepad++ 5.9.5, Paint .Net 3.5.10, VirtualCloneDrive 5.4.5.0 and the list could go on – and they all work just fine. This is mainly on the two Windows 8 x64 laptops (home – Dell Vostro 1520, Intel Core2 Duo P8600, 4GB, 15” 1440x900 Intel G45; work – Dell Latitude E6420, Intel Core i5, 4GB, 15” 1440x900 Intel GMA 3000 HD).

I got used just fine to the Metro Start, I only see it when I logon – from which I like the News and Weather live tiles – or when searching for some of the programs (Win+R works just as before), but that only until I get them started and then I either pin them to the task bar or add the shortcuts to my desktop. In fact, I quite like using the Metro Internet Explorer with applications like Changepoint, where before I had to maximize the working page, now it does that by design. It only happened to me once or twice when trying to access a control in Visual Studio from the left toolbar that I dragged one of the full screen Metro apps, but no biggie. In fact, I think I found a way of kinda closing the Metro apps by using ALT+F4 (Close, it was always in there with Windows for ages), although it only closes them to the green screen…

Anyways, to summarize, I kinda like Windows 8 and looking forward to the beta release. Watching the news for tablet releases next year, I’d definitely buy a Windows 8 table and start writing some apps for it.

Cleaning your laptop fan

2011-10-26T00:06:00.001+01:00

The other week I decided to open up my missus’ old Vaio laptop as it was having problems with some keys not typing and using pressurised air didn’t seem to do anything. 20 or so screws later, having to take the keyboard out, the keyboard cable, the touchpad cable, some of frame, anyways a lot of work, I could see the fan at the back and said hey, I should have a look at that as well as I noticed it was struggling lately.

I thought at first that it wasn’t able to cope with today’s Flash applications and things like Yahoo Messenger and so forth – it’s an old 1.2 GHz Pentium M Mobile CPU – but man you should’ve seen the crap it collected in there over the years; dust burned to a black char got stuck in the radiator and the fan was struggling to push the air out without much success. I should’ve taken a few pictures, but it didn’t seem like something anyone would do, I said ok it had its years, it only happens to old laptops...

And I couldn’t be more wrong, cause the next day I said, ok how about my 2 years old Dell Vostro? Luckily Dell Vostro has a much better design where you can access the memory, fan and the CPU under this panel held by a couple of screws. Below you can see a couple shots with the crap in the radiator and fan blades.

To clean up, I use pressurised air and an old toothbrush for radiators, then for the fan blades cotton swabs with medicinal spirit, slowly going through the blades holding the fan so it doesn't rotate to make it easier - it’s not like I do it every day and 5 minutes later you’re done anyways.

It made quite a bit of difference to the old laptop, the fan doesn’t go on high as often and the one on my Vostro barely kicks in every now and then. For some reason I thought before blowing air (pressurised or human powered) through the vents was enough to get the stuff out of the fan, now I think I will do the real thing again every couple of years.

TeraCopy

2011-10-23T01:45:00.001+01:00

http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features:

Copy files faster. TeraCopy uses dynamically adjusted buffers to reduce seek times. Asynchronous copy speeds up file transfer between two physical hard drives.
Pause and resume file transfers. Pause copy process at any time to free up system resources and continue with a single click.
Error recovery. In case of copy error, TeraCopy will try several times and in the worse case just skip the file, not terminating the entire transfer.
Interactive file list. TeraCopy shows failed file transfers and lets you fix the problem and recopy only problem files.
Shell integration. TeraCopy can completely replace Explorer copy and move functions, allowing you work with files as usual.
Full Unicode support.
Windows 7 x64 support.

Windows 8 Preview installation using Network Boot (PXE)

2011-10-16T00:51:00.001+01:00

I have an older Vaio VGN-A115B laptop with not enough disk space on the system partition (running the setup.exe from the older OS it says it requires 16 GB free, although it will happily install later on a 12 GB partition), a shot DVD drive that couldn’t read a DVD-RW disk with Windows 8 installer and on top of that didn’t seem to power the USB ports at boot, the only option I was left off was to do a network boot (PXE) – something I always wanted to try. So after two days and a lot of failed attempts, here it is…

Somehow I always thought booting through PXE would be easy (just as easy as the USB or DVD boot) – and how wrong I was, as it requires both a DHCP server that allows to specify a boot program and TFTP server, neither of which is easily found on the net (details on Intel Boot Agent).

Eventually I did stumble onto TFTPD32/64 and Serva32/64 – both looking fairly similar which is fair enough cause the second is based on code from the first one. They seemed to have done the job well for other people, but for me the embedded TFTPD server failed a lot on transferring the BCD store during tests with a local VM, so I finally stopped using that and eventually found SolarWind TFTP Server much more reliable…

To make things even more complicated, you have to prepare the boot image with Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) – you can find a lot more information for that one the web, but it does require quite a large download of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) – in my case I downloaded version 3.0 for Windows 7.

A few things to note about my setup

Since I already have a router on the network with a DHCP server running, to avoid conflicts I used an Ethernet hub I had around to connect the two laptops directly. I manually setup the Ethernet adapter on my “server” to use 10.0.0.1 IP address (easier to type) and disabled the firewall as well as the wireless adapter for the duration of the exercise (you can probably just as easily add the server programs below as exceptions to the firewall) – if you do it like me, remember to re-enable the firewall back on when finished and to set the Ethernet adapter for automatic IP allocation later on.

You might also notice that I also configured the DHCP server to server IP addresses from the same private class (10.0.0.xxx).

I will also point out is that I will prepare a 32 bit WinPE image in C:\WinPE directory and then use the C:\TFPT-Root\Boot to place the boot files (SolarWind TFTP server defaults to C:\TFTP-Root anyways, don’t fancy the dash but not important, feel free to change).

The “technician“ computer – my Dell laptop (Windows 7 x64)

Windows PE image preparation

Installing Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) is fairly straight forward so I’m not going to go into details on that. For preparing the WinPE image I started from this Microsoft Walkthrough: Deploy an Image by Using PXE although I’m not going to follow it to the letter, feel free to use that if you want.

Run Windows AIK Command prompt:

Run the copype.cmd command (will automatically change to the image directory and will use relative paths from then on) – remember I’m building an image for an x86 system :

copype.cmd x86 C:\WinPE

imagex /mountrw winpe.wim 1 mount

copy mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\*.* C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

Now for copying boot.sdi you can use the full path to AIK tools or simply close the console and run a new Deployment console and use relative paths.

copy x86\boot\boot.sdi C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

Back to the WinPE directory and unmount the image (cleanup).

cd /d C:\WinPE
imagex /unmount mount

Copy winpe.wim in the TFTP boot directory as boot.wim (might just work as winpe.wim, but the BCD commands below will mention boot.wim).

copy winpe.wim C:\TFTP-Root\Boot\boot.wim

Now moving on to preparing the BCD store. You might notice that instead of specifying the full path to the BCD I will change directory to the Boot directory and do it from in there. Personally I reuse the previous command (press up arrow) and change the parts at the end…

cd /d C:\TFTP-Root\Boot
bcdedit -createstore BCD

bcdedit -store BCD -create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options"
bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice boot
bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi

bcdedit -store BCD -create /d "MyWinPE Boot Image" /application osloader

Note the highlighted GUID value – you will need to copy that and use it in the subsequent commands (replace {guid} with the one generated for you).

bcdedit -store BCD -set {guid} systemroot \Windows
bcdedit -store BCD -set {guid} detecthal Yes
bcdedit -store BCD -set {guid} winpe Yes
bcdedit -store BCD -set {guid} osdevice ramdisk=[boot]\Boot\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
bcdedit -store BCD -set {guid} device ramdisk=[boot]\Boot\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}

bcdedit -store BCD -create {bootmgr} /d "Windows BootManager"
bcdedit -store BCD -set {bootmgr} timeout 30
bcdedit -store BCD -displayorder {guid}

This is what I eventually got in the Boot folder.

Sharing Windows 8 installation files

As you will see later on, when the remote computer will boot up and load the WinPE image it will take you to a command line where you need to map a network drive to the computer sharing the image files.

In my case, I took the Windows 8 ISO image, mounted in Virtual Clone Drive and shared it as Windows8 folder. I also created a pxe user with pxe password (you can use an existing user if it has a password assigned to it), and you will see how you will need to map a network drive from the remote computer to the installation files in order to start the actual Windows setup.

Serva32/64 DHCP server

As noted below, I will configure Serva64 (in my case again, running Windows 7 x64) to only enable the DHCP server and disable the other services.

IP pool / size : 10.0.0.100 / 100 (IP range …100 to …200)
Boot file : Boot\pxeboot.com
Subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

SolarWinds TFTP server

Not much to configure there, go to File > Configure and start the service (change the storage location to point to your files – note we’re not pointing to Boot, but the parent directory). Otherwise the software is smart enough to bind to the interface and allow to serve files.

Test run using Windows Virtual PC

Simply create a VM with a blank VM and it will try to automatically boot from the network – if everything works fine you will notice that it gets an IP in DHCP server console and it will start transferring files from the TFTP server…

Old laptop (PXE booting)

I should note that in the case of my VAIO I had to enable the Network Boot in BIOS (press F2 at boot) and then press ESC to get the boot devices listing and choose Network Boot. Then it will move to a screen similar to the above if everything is setup ok.

Pressing F12 will continue the boot process, where it downloads the boot manager, WinPE image etc. Ignore the errors in the TFTP console about not finding boot.ini and wgl4_boot.ttf.

Eventually the remote computer will start loading boot.wim and get you the setup background and a command line prompt. Now you will map that network drive to point to the installation files (remember I created a new user pxe/pxe and shared the Windows8 installation files – the net use command will fail if a user is not specified saying something about Server service not being started).

From the remote computer console run the statements:

net use y: \\10.0.0.1\Windows8 pxe /user:pxe
y:\setup.exe

And finally now you are running the Windows 8 setup and continue with the usual stuff… It only took me 2 days to figure it out and get it running, hopefully this is going to useful to someone else as well, I know I’ll definitely try it again, although I will be zipping up the boot files and keeping them for future use, what might change is the setup files on the share.

Keep in mind that when we prepared the image in the first place it was for an x32 platform and you will probably need to go through the process again to build for an x64 platform, replacing all the x86 references with amd64.

CLR Profiler for .NET Framework 4

2011-10-05T00:48:00.001+01:00

You read all this documentation saying you should use StringBuilder instead of String.Concat() when doing a lot of concatenation and say huh, it’s all fine, what do these guys know?!

And then I just decided to run my little app that’s processing some application logs through the CLR Profiler, and looking through the allocations a huge block of 259 MB allocations jumped at me! Now, looking at the app from outside with Process Explorer didn’t show much memory usage but that’s probably because the GC was doing a lot of cleanups – the collections report shows it as well.

Changing the code to use a StringBuilder was not that complicated and it reduced the amount of cleanup and cut the processing time in half, from 20 seconds down to 10 seconds! Still some more work to do, but we’re on the good track now...

CLR Profiler for .NET Framework 4
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=16273

* * *

CLR Profiler (before)

CLR Profiler (after)

Microsoft WMI Code Creator v1.0

2011-10-04T23:37:00.001+01:00

Want to query WMI for information on your system? Very easy with this tool Microsoft made available – pick the category, the fields and will generate the code for you, and even change it and run it to see how it works before you bring it into your program. Huge timesaver if you’re new to it (like me) – writing a program to query for certain services to get status, process id etc.

WMI Code Creator v1.0
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8572

The WMI Code Creator tool allows you to generate VBScript, C#, and VB .NET code that uses WMI to complete a management task such as querying for management data, executing a method from a WMI class, or receiving event notifications using WMI.

Best value mouse ever!

2011-09-26T20:41:00.001+01:00

I was so excited about the simplicity and function of this mouse, bought it for all my work and home computers and even given to friends, it’s a shame to see it going away (just bought two more to store :-)... So I decided to write about it.

I usually don’t recommend hardware to people cause nowadays it’s so easy to can find all the reviews you want and people want to find stuff themselves, but great, simple to use mice are always underestimated.

I’m talking about Microsoft Wheel Optical Mouse – great simple shape (use with either hand), no additional buttons or anything (no need to install IntelliMouse), light and easy to navigate with, long soft cord (stiffer cords usually disconnect internally where the cord enters the body after a few years), soft & quiet buttons and simple, easy to click wheel (so handy to close those thumbnails in Windows 7 taskbar thumbnails or browser tabs – and no fancy wheel clicks or moves there either). A great, dependable, easy to use, no fuss mouse – it’s a shame to see them going away, finding them harder and harder nowadays. Well done Microsoft on this one.

My (brief and early) thoughts on what a Windows 8 PC can be…

2011-09-21T03:39:00.001+01:00

Reading blog posts and comments from way before Windows 8 Developer Preview was released and even now that is out there to try, it pains me to see the lack of imagination accompanied by comments like “why would I would want to touch my screen”, “mouse will never die” and alikes from people that never thought to try a tablet… Imagine you can have it on the go - browsing websites, reading books, listening to music, watching video and browsing your photos - come to your desk, plug your tablet into a docking station and bam, you got a desktop PC (maybe even switch from Metro to standard desktop automatically), where you can use it with your mouse and keyboard just like a desktop or a laptop PC! It’s all the same things I already do with my ASUS R2H UMPC (I even foreseen the docking thing from the R2H plastic docking idea! so simple, now :-). Yes, UMPC concept did flop 5 years ago but that was mainly cause hardware wasn’t as capable as it is nowadays and it wasn’t designed for finger touch, but for a stylus pen, and to be fair Windows XP was usable with that, but let’s be honest it was more like using an oversized smart phone.

No, I don’t see tablets taking over the world in the next 6 months or a year, but for most consumers tablets might be something they might keep in mind when buying a new a laptop or even a desktop PC for casual home use. Maybe touch screen interfaces with new apps written with finger touch in mind and maybe voice recognition might be easier to use, especially now that iPhones, iPads and whatnot made touch quite familiar with everyone – I guess you have to try it before you dismiss it. Once you use it I think it just makes sense. With more processing power, nice graphic effects and longer battery life things could shift to see more “proper” (larger) mobile devices making it into the mainstream, running Windows 8…

No, I don’t think desktop PCs are not going go anywhere, just like laptops haven’t replaced and probably won’t (ever) wipe desktops – there will always be people wanting to build their own powerful systems and never intend to take them on the road. I know I have a “tablet” UMPC, a desktop and laptop and I would still want a tablet.

I take my UMPC on the bus on the way to work, and only take my laptop with me when going in holidays and doing some light work or coding on my laptop while at home. I would easily see one of those i5 Core tablets with more power and storage space replacing these two devices, in mobile mode (Metro) and then in a docked mode (Desktop). I will still keep my desktop for larger code builds or video editing.

So, yeah, finally I think good tablets can take a large chunk off laptops and slower desktops from casual user market, whether we like or not – and in fact we might see some people change their minds once they see and use one in the shops. Just like I did when I saw an iPad and then a Xoom in shops and said “oh, I’d like to have one of these”. Would I want to buy an iPad? Mmmnooo… too pricey, doesn’t switch to a desktop workstation for me, no thanks. Android? I was thinking about it just before news of Windows 8 coming out and even playing with the idea of learning how to develop apps for Android, but then I thought to myself… a tablet that works off as a mobile as well as a desktop device, runs existing Windows apps and allows me to easily write new ones with the knowledge and tools I already have (btw, great move from Microsoft releasing the Visual Studio Express suite and SQL Server compact - now if I need to write an app the first thing that pops to mind is to write it in C# – which btw, I don’t see why would not easily be able to build the same code for both x86/x64 and ARM machines).

Anyways, wrapping up the rant, I think Windows 8 can / will be a great OS running on today’s hardware technology, not to mention what the future will bring (if you read news on Intel and Nvidia plans you can see even faster, less power hungry hardware coming along) – and judging by what I’ve seen in the last couple of days running on 5 years old, slower hardware (ASUS R2H is a mere Intel 900 Mhz ULV Celeron with no L2 cache and an integrated Intel 915 integrated graphics and it can still flip those screens around and do transparency), I think it will scream on nowadays / future hardware.

I’m actually quite excited about Windows 8 tablets and can’t wait to see them on the market – will most likely get one probably 6 months after release when the price is right and I’m pretty sure good ones will most likely stand out following good reviews (now I’m betting maybe on Samsung or Asus…). Or maybe I’ll wait a bit longer than I did with UMPCs , but judging from the mainstream excitement out there good W8 tablets will flood the market much faster than UMPCs did so I won’t have to wait that long for the right one.

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H (2)

2011-09-16T22:44:00.001+01:00

Thanks to a comment from Prof Julie on the previous post pointing to a forum thread where someone has succeeded in installing Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H, I tried again this time not running the setup.exe from Windows 7, but from a bootable disk.

Here are the steps this time:

download Windows Developer Preview English, 32-bit (x86) ISO;
use Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool to create a bootable USB stick;
boot from USB stick (press ESC at boot to choose to the USB stick).

It took about 30 minutes to copy the files, extract and go through the configuration screens. I reused the 13 GB partition used for Windows 7, with 4.5 GB free after installation.

Logging in with the Ethernet connected after a couple of minutes I see it managed to download a wireless driver and start seeing wireless networks available – there are more updates to apply, some for Authentec fingerprint sensor and I see a wireless driver update as well…

Interesting part is that it’s got Aero Peek and transparency with the default Microsoft Basic Display Adapter, something that wasn’t available in Windows 7. Responsiveness is pretty much on par with Windows 7 and out of the box the pen calibration is off (cursor shows above-right to the finger nail / stylus, something that I guess can be fixed through calibration).

Screen resolution is the physical 800x480, can’t seem to be able to get it higher than that – I won’t install the previous Vista video driver, never used the higher resolutions provided by the ASUS tools, found those too blurry to use, maybe once in a blue moon just to get around a window that was too tall (for most I used to drag the task bar to the right to get to the bottom of the window).

Task Manager was largely improved to show more in-depth information, where previously I had to use Process Explorer to get some of that information – should be very handy for servers (I am involved every now and then in customer performance assessments and troubleshooting – it’s nice to have the tools already on the system rather than having to download them).

Windows Explorer got the ribbon, with the ability of collapsing it using the up arrow thingy in the top right corner…

Turning a few things off: like animations and theme sounds, Offline Files, Print Spooler, uninstalling Windows Gadget Platform, disable Bluetooth device and service, SD card controller, bringing My Computer icon to the desktop (right-click, Personalisation), getting there…

Here is a screenshot of the main start screen – have I mentioned that all the screenshots were taken from an RDP connection with full theme / transparency support from my Windows 7 laptop? easier for me to post from here…

I don’t know what else to try for now, I’ll set it up for normal use and see how we get along – doesn’t seem to miss anything, we’ll see how it goes over the next few weeks. I’ll take it for a bus ride maybe next week and see how the battery fares but looks very usable to me, not missing Windows 7 already.

BUILD Windows 2011 – Keynote #1

2011-09-16T00:59:00.001+01:00

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/KEY-0001

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H…

2011-09-15T22:28:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately this is more about not being able to install Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H UPMC. Microsoft has enforced the minimum requirements this time - ASUS R2H UMPC has an Intel 900 Mhz ULV Celeron M CPU...

Windows 8 Developer Preview

2011-09-15T00:44:00.001+01:00

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/br229516

The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers. These downloads include prerelease software that may change without notice. The software is provided as is, and you bear the risk of using it. It may not be stable, operate correctly or work the way the final version of the software will. It should not be used in a production environment. The features and functionality in the prerelease software may not appear in the final version. Some product features and functionality may require advanced or additional hardware, or installation of other software.

[…]

Computer posture

2011-09-11T18:38:00.001+01:00

Building “Windows 8” – video #3: Improving file management basics

2011-08-28T09:35:00.001+01:00

HandBrake

2011-08-01T12:45:00.001+01:00

http://handbrake.fr
http://sourceforge.net/projects/handbrake/

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

Supported Sources:

Most common multimedia files that libavformat and libavcodec support.
Any DVD or Bluray-like source which is NOT copy-protected. (removal of copy protection is not supported)

Outputs:

File format: MP4(M4V) and MKV
Video: MPEG-4(ffmpeg), H.264(x264), or Theora(libtheora)
Audio: AAC, CoreAudio AAC (OS X Only), MP3, or Vorbis. AC-3 pass-through, DTS pass-thorugh (MKV only)

Misc features:

Chapter selection, Chapter Markers
Subtitles
- Vobsub and Closed Captions
- SRT import and passthru
- SSA passthru or burn-in (experimental)
Constant Quality or Average Bitrate Video Encoding
Support for VFR, CFR and VFR
Video: Deinterlacing, Decomb, Detelecine, Cropping and scaling
Live Video Preivew

Credits:

HandBrake uses a lot of (L)GPL librairies from the Linux world: Here

Thank their authors!

Second IE10 Platform Preview Available for Developers

2011-07-02T00:27:00.001+01:00

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/06/29/site-ready-html5-second-ie10-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx

Dan Dar3

Sanyo Eneloop – rechargeable NiMh batteries

Microsoft Global Foundation Services (GFS) - DataCenter Tour

PeerBlock

How LCD monitors work

Windows 8 – Accessing data in ISO and VHD files

Geekbench

Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011

Parsing large XMLs with XmlReader and XmlSerializer (C#)

Eclipse – FindBugs plugin

My first week with Windows 8 Preview…

Cleaning your laptop fan

TeraCopy

Windows 8 Preview installation using Network Boot (PXE)

copype.cmd x86 C:\WinPE

imagex /mountrw winpe.wim 1 mount

copy mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\. C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

copy x86\boot\boot.sdi C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

cd /d C:\WinPE
imagex /unmount mount

copy winpe.wim C:\TFTP-Root\Boot\boot.wim

cd /d C:\TFTP-Root\Boot
bcdedit -createstore BCD

bcdedit -store BCD -create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options"
bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice boot
bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi

bcdedit -store BCD -create /d "MyWinPE Boot Image" /application osloader

bcdedit -store BCD -create {bootmgr} /d "Windows BootManager"
bcdedit -store BCD -set {bootmgr} timeout 30
bcdedit -store BCD -displayorder {guid}

IP pool / size : 10.0.0.100 / 100 (IP range …100 to …200)
Boot file : Boot\pxeboot.com
Subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

net use y: \\10.0.0.1\Windows8 pxe /user:pxe
y:\setup.exe

CLR Profiler for .NET Framework 4

Microsoft WMI Code Creator v1.0

Best value mouse ever!

My (brief and early) thoughts on what a Windows 8 PC can be…

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H (2)

BUILD Windows 2011 – Keynote #1

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H…

Windows 8 Developer Preview

Computer posture

Building “Windows 8” – video #3: Improving file management basics

HandBrake

Second IE10 Platform Preview Available for Developers

Dan Dar3

Sanyo Eneloop – rechargeable NiMh batteries

Microsoft Global Foundation Services (GFS) - DataCenter Tour

PeerBlock

How LCD monitors work

Windows 8 – Accessing data in ISO and VHD files

Geekbench

Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011

Parsing large XMLs with XmlReader and XmlSerializer (C#)

Eclipse – FindBugs plugin

My first week with Windows 8 Preview…

Cleaning your laptop fan

TeraCopy

Windows 8 Preview installation using Network Boot (PXE)

copype.cmd x86 C:\WinPE

imagex /mountrw winpe.wim 1 mount

copy mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\*.* C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

copy x86\boot\boot.sdi C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

cd /d C:\WinPE imagex /unmount mount

copy winpe.wim C:\TFTP-Root\Boot\boot.wim

cd /d C:\TFTP-Root\Boot bcdedit -createstore BCD

bcdedit -store BCD -create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options" bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice boot bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi

bcdedit -store BCD -create /d "MyWinPE Boot Image" /application osloader

bcdedit -store BCD -create {bootmgr} /d "Windows BootManager" bcdedit -store BCD -set {bootmgr} timeout 30 bcdedit -store BCD -displayorder {guid}

IP pool / size : 10.0.0.100 / 100 (IP range …100 to …200) Boot file : Boot\pxeboot.com Subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

net use y: \\10.0.0.1\Windows8 pxe /user:pxe y:\setup.exe

CLR Profiler for .NET Framework 4

Microsoft WMI Code Creator v1.0

Best value mouse ever!

My (brief and early) thoughts on what a Windows 8 PC can be…

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H (2)

BUILD Windows 2011 – Keynote #1

Windows 8 Developer Preview on ASUS R2H…

Windows 8 Developer Preview

Computer posture

Building “Windows 8” – video #3: Improving file management basics

HandBrake

Second IE10 Platform Preview Available for Developers

copy mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\. C:\TFTP-Root\Boot

cd /d C:\WinPE
imagex /unmount mount

cd /d C:\TFTP-Root\Boot
bcdedit -createstore BCD

bcdedit -store BCD -create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options"
bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice boot
bcdedit -store BCD -set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi

bcdedit -store BCD -create {bootmgr} /d "Windows BootManager"
bcdedit -store BCD -set {bootmgr} timeout 30
bcdedit -store BCD -displayorder {guid}

IP pool / size : 10.0.0.100 / 100 (IP range …100 to …200)
Boot file : Boot\pxeboot.com
Subnet mask : 255.255.255.0

net use y: \\10.0.0.1\Windows8 pxe /user:pxe
y:\setup.exe