CompHobby! - Ramble

Some Thoughts On Something I Said

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:57:00 -0500

The statement in question is in my last piece about the Ubuntu release cycle versus hardware requirements (longevity) as opposed to let just say Microsoft release cycle versus hardware requirements (longevity) and my comment was...

some other OS products seem more like they are out to consume the current installed hardware capabilities of average user

The only reason I am bring this up is because there is an excellent article at InfoWorld about this which gives a Windows OS/Windows Office comparison from 1999 to the present. It is really well written because the author references the average hardware base at each part of the evolution, talks a little on how service packs affected everything, and how much more powerful PCs became as the years passed by. He even has an abbreviation for for the phenomenon (some people just call it bloat) The Great Moore's Law Compensator (TGMLC).

Despite years of real-world experience with both sides of the duopoly, few organizations have taken the time to directly quantify what my colleagues and I at Intel used to call The Great Moore's Law Compensator (TGMLC). In fact, the hard numbers above represent what is perhaps the first-ever attempt to accurately measure the evolution of the Windows/Office platform in terms of real-world hardware system requirements and resource consumption. In this article I hope to further quantify the impact of TGMLC and to track its effects across four distinct generations of Microsoft's desktop computing software stack.

This of course all begs the question but with evolving hardware aren't things really happening faster than they use too???

The net result is that, surprise, Vista and Office 2007 on today’s state-of-the-art hardware delivers throughput that's still only 22 percent slower than Windows XP and Office 2003 on the previous generation of state-of-the-art hardware. In other words, the hardware gets faster, the code base gets fatter, and the user experience, as measured in terms of application response times and overall execution throughput, remains relatively intact. The Great Moore's Law Compensator is vindicated.

The whole article is available at InfoWeek and is called Fat, fatter, fattest: Microsoft. So once again more of the do less with more type of thinking continues to rule in Redmond but then again there seems to an actual sort of kinda scientific principle in play here as well... The Great Moore's Law Compensator (TGMLC).

A Backup Strategy of Sorts!!

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:07:00 -0500

I've actually always had one really. A very haphazard one but a backup strategy none the less. On most of the PCs I've owned until recently anyway, always had more than one hard disk installed. The plan was to take valuable files and make duplicate copies on the additional drive. Then I would always make duplicate copies of stuff on different PCs as well, also I always seem to copy files from one OS to another on the same PC if possible. Things I would tend to copy would be pictures, un drm'd musics files, copies of databases, my web and mail servers, install programs, user keys, personal settings, configurations ...etc. Then there were the several USB flash devices I had acquired that I put various files I deemed necessary for one reason or another and they were of course very useful for moving stuff from one machine to another. The word centralized was not however in my vocabulary as the scattered method had always gotten me through the few emergencies I ever encountered without to much pain.

Recently though the idea of a network attached storage device had been intriguing me as a means of sort of automating the process and a way of centralizing everything. I at one point considered building such a device or maybe getting a bring your own disks type rig. There is certainly no shortage of options in the market right now and it almost seems like if one can visualize what they want they can either find a solution out the box or make it themselves. My criteria were pretty simple I wanted it now so it had to be available locally which is really huge as where I live as shopping choices for hardware are somewhat limited. It also had to be fairly compact because I wanted it hanging off my wireless router, and most importantly it had to be dead simple to to use. I wanted to plug it in, find it on my network, set it up, and start using it period without installing any additional software to access it. It also had to be accessible from Linux as well as Windows. With my criteria in mind I set out to one of the chain computer/home electronics style stores located around here. Very few choices were available but I was expecting that so I settled for one of these in the 500GB flavor from Circuit City.

I knew it wasn't going to be terribly fast but I was pleased to find out that it wasn't terribly slow either and by that I mean for a home user not doing automated backups, but just backing up user files using the mapped drive interface its speed is tolerable. Now on my server via software I have backup set to happen synchronously and currently is at about 1 GB of data. Since it is set up synchronously it just runs in the background and keeps up with the task as things change hopefully causing a minimal impact on the servers perfomance. The initial backup took well over an hour and I used the Memeo AutoBackUp software that came bundled with the LinkStation Live which is only a trail version as the registration number they bundled with it did not work (less than honest sh*t imho). It would not copy empty folders and as slow as it seemed to be I wasn't about to buy it. So I've been on a download spree trying almost every free product out there before settling on another trialware offering. The program is called MirrorFolder and it completed the initial copy in less than 20 minutes which might not sound all that fast but compared to the various programs I gave a shot it is lightening fast and very easy on system resources. It copies everything you tell it to and as far as I can tell does what the program's writer says it will. To a new user this is not exactly the most intuitive interface but the program's performance compared to other offerings make the learning curve a worthwhile endeavor.

As far my backup strategy goes I'll still do all the things I mentioned in the beginning of the post I've just expanded a bit to include some new automation tools and hardware. Just for the record the LinkStation Live plays very nicely with Linux (Ubuntu anyway) as my installation had no problems finding and making it usable. Still though the whole experience has been sort of a mixed one for me being somewhat tainted by the bundled Memeo trialware debacle and I found the documentation that came with the product lacking. I mean there is a PDF file on the install CD which I didn't use and it is also available on the LinkStation Live once one has managed to connect to it. I just prefer a well written quick start guide in paper form at least. After all I did not want to have to install any software to connect it. Luckily I did not have to but I can see where some users might not have any choice as basically the PDF gave that out as the first step.

Insert the LinkNavigator CD into your computer’s CD-ROM drive.
On a PC, setup should automatically launch. If it does not, manually launch setup.exe by pressing Start and selecting the Run... option. When the Run dialog opens, type d:\setup.exe (where d is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive). Press OK to continue.

Installing Software
If you are installing the software on a Mac, open the CD and click LinkNavigator to begin installation.

Not what I was realy looking for... a minor thing but a thing none the the less.

Some Free Things I Use

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:40:00 -0600

Everyone has their favorite free softwares and web based services that they have accumulated so I just thought I would mention a few of mine here.

Web browsing
Well for me its Firefox and a matter of fact I am using the the beta version now. To get it to work like I wanted I got to use one of Firefox's most unique features the about:config screen.

Firefox excels in my opinion because of the amount of customization the user gets with extensions. Everything doesn't always work as intended though which brings me to another utility I've found useful every now and then.

File Compression
For me the program of choice in a Windows environment is 7-Zip and really not so much for its archiving abilities but its Windows Shell integration which allows me a quick way to view the contents of almost any compressed file I may have downloaded.

In addition to opening and viewing the archive files inside can be edited and then saved back to the archive which depending on what one is doing can be a handy feature sometimes.

Text Editing for scripts, webpages etc...
This is in my opinion one thing that a default install of Windows (any version I've ever used don't know about Vista yet though) sucks at. When I say open a script file of some sort I want it viewable in a human readable format but when I close it I want it saved back to whatever format it was in unaltered with no questions asked including funky unix style carriage returns or whatever. My text editor of choice has become PSPad it does all those things and more. It has that same Windows shell integration feature that 7-Zip offers so it is always easily available and ready to use.

I've really only scratched the surface here as this program is really very feature full and I don't need a text/hex editor all the time. My exposure with it is rather limited in relation to its entire feature set, but for my needs it works easily and reliably.

Misc Graphics Tools....
As with text editing a default install of Windows (any version I've ever used don't know about Vista yet though) sucks at this. I mean Linux has The Gimp which is also available for Windows but I don't particularly care for either version Windows or Linux. However the program is at least capable of providing a base off which to work with images though. Windows has Paint which on a good day almost just doesn't cut it. There is Paint.NET which is a vast improvement over Paint and as with all graphics editors has its own learning curve but can be used for most basic tasks. Now the program I generally use or the one I am most familiar with is PhotoFiltre which actually comes in two flavors a free one or a more capable studio version which is a a 30 day free trail shareware product. I can't speak about the paid version as I have only ever used the free version but I might give it a try eventually. Now recently I discovered another freeware offering called PhotosScape. and like Paint.NET and PhotoFiltre has the learning curve but yields some pretty high quality results.

Of the three if I could only pick one it would be PhotoFiltre but as I stated earlier it has more to do with familiarity than anything else. I am going to close for now but I plan on speaking to this subject (favorite free programs) in the future again. One more thing I included this post to the serving category as these and several other programs are very important to that end.

Mini Computers I Like Em The AOpen 965D

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:50:00 -0600

The computer that I have been using to serve the pages of my websites was beginning to sound a little sick. The fan for the CPU was making a noise akin to bearings grinding and the hard disk was sounding very similar as well on boot ups. The unit in question was housed in a rather huge desktop style case sitting on stand under my work desk that sometimes when I would back my chair up I would inadvertently run it into the power button and shut it down. Of course though everything was working and might of lasted for quite a while longer. Looking around my office I realize that some of my ideas about upgrading computers run more along the lines of whims than anything else. My abandoned computers now number four and are all of the Socket A variety.

The ones I currently maintain number three which include one Dell Dimension 9300 laptop that I use as home and at work because of software licensing and software issues and the need to have many work related tools available to me at home and many home related tools available to me at work. This unit has been exceptionally reliable and when people see it they often ask questions about it even though it is over two years old.

The computer I using right now is a 2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core flavor and really serves as my primary workstation for everything music, games, videos, taxes, bills, pictures, shopping and generally just about everything else anyone can think of. It is also the computer I use to test a lot of things that may or may not find their way onto my server. So additionally I have set it up as sort of a localized development environment running interpreters for 3 different scripting languages, a database server, and web server software. It is a dual boot system running Windows XP and Ubuntu and is constantly in a state of change from the hardware and software perspectives. This machine sees a lot of web exposure between web browsing and the applications installed on it keeping it up to date is sometimes a bit of a pain as there is really a very large amount of web aware applications running on it. It just works would be the best way I could describe it to anyone.

As I said way back up at the top of the post my computer that I use as a my server was getting a little dated and because of the whim factor I wanted to update (well actually replace) it. As I have said in the past I am by now means a tech expert but rather a hobbyist so criteria for a replacement machine might not follow any real logical path. My goals were as follows. It has to be small as the space available to me is limited. Quiet for absolute sure quiet. I want it to just sit there and do its serving thing without bothering me. Powerful? Yes powerful but in a relative sort of way. Lots of fast memory, decently fast hard drive, and reasonably fast CPU; however, I really didn't care about graphics horsepower but did want it have reasonable display prowess for when I actually do work on it directly this machine will not be running any true server OS and from time to time will accessed directly to perform certain tasks. So the AOpen 965D became my unit of choice. I configured it wiith a 200GB hard drive and 3GB DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM and a fairly fast processor. Now of course this is for the most part a 99% laptop configuration to keep the thing small and power consumption down but so far it seems up to the task of providing web, email, and database services for my domains and it is very quiet!

Above it sits nicely on a cluttered desk quietly handling tasks. So in my opinion if someone wanted a fairly powerful computer (not for games though) this unit could fit the needs of many casual users if space and noise were major concerns. It is pitched as a digital engine and one model is available with a remote control but I can't really can't speak as to how well it would perform in that arena since as it has limited graphics capabilities and I have never tried to build a computer for the whole home media management role. If there is one drawback about the unit it is that it comes at a fairly high price point for the actual amount of hardware one gets. It is however an elegant solution in the small form factor/mini PC offerings area.

2008 Resolve

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:10:00 -0600

Whew it has been awhile since I last posted anything on the site. It's not like I don't want to so much as when I do have free time these days there are a lot of other non PC related things I either need or want to do as well. I started a new job about one year and four months ago and that has kept me extremely busy. I have from time to time tweaked and upgraded various parts of this site and the accompanying software that runs it but that is more of the under the hood variety of things and anyone who has possibly visited probably wouldn't notice such changes. Doing such tasks is a safety and value added practice since getting things to work has always been one of the main motivations for having a site.

In regard to the site this being a new year and all I do resolve to update at least a little more frequently than I did last year. Also in that vein the nature of this site will be even more amateur than it is already. Since CompHobby is really only one contributer (me) any and possibly everything that is posted here is a biased opinion. Things I like I will speak positively about things I don't I'll speak negatively about. Sometimes I will have it right other times I will be way off base. There will be as usual deep linking and block quotes galore perhaps taken in context, perhaps taken out of context. I do however always say what I honestly think about things and it is never my intention to mislead anyone or misreport anything. Visitors are urged to leave comments but I have no idea whether that will work or not since there are so many anti spam hacks in the site's script to prevent comment abuse I just can't be sure.

How Well can You Spot A Scam

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:46:00 -0500

It has been awhile since I've posted anything as I have been really busy trying to get things setup where I work. That being said though I always at least skim my compliment of various types of sites and look at what is happening around the web as far as news goes. I ran ran across this McAfee SiteAdvisor Phishing Quiz . I got nine out ten correct. So I guess that would translate into something like I could spot a fake 90% of the time. Only problem with that though is it only takes one time to really mess up one's day. Of course this kind of test isn't an absolute indication of how likely one is to become a scam victim but just an exercise in recognizing what is happening in the wild. Staying safe from scammers is in my opinion is part common sense, coupled with use of tools and best practices.

Digital Music More Risky Than Porn?

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:08:00 -0500

Don't really know about this one as the article doesn't really define risk very well .

McAfee's SiteAdvisor said that music and technology related websites have a negative impact on computers since they often leave spyware and other malicious codes, which can lead to a massive increase in the amount of spam generated.

The study revealed that browsing porn websites through search engine has a 9 percent risk of infecting PCs with spyware, adware and spam. This figure jumps to 19 percent when searching for digital music. Other sites that can harm computers are those related to electronic gadgets and for background wallpapers.

By define risk I mean is giving up personal info to some pornographer somewhere safer than downloading some P2P file sharing application and using it to share copyrighted materials. Both practices sound fairly risky to me. Check out the Earth Times Online Newspaper for more.

License To Use The Internet

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:28:00 -0500

We've heard this stuff before about how clueless PC users are turning the Internet into some sort of front end for international crime syndicates.....

Service providers and everyday users were singled out by panelists and audience members for not taking enough responsibility. Attendees slammed ISPs for not searching for rogue computers on their network or shutting off internet access to compromised PCs reported to them by security companies, charging that ISPs were endangering the internet to avoid support calls from cut off customers.

For their part, users don't care about security because the rogue zombie software often only uses minimal computing power, making the background spam-spouting code not their problem.

A few audience members argued seriously that computer users should have to take a test to get an internet license, maintain botnet insurance and have their machines inspected for information-super highway worthiness. Others countered that individuals shouldn't have to know how to secure their own computers -- the machines should simply be more inherently secure.

Personally I don't think it is going to happen. Users are not going to be licensed, ISPs could generally care less, until of course they get caught with a malware spewing botnet in their network. Even then at most they'll just block the users in question and get even more clueless users to replace them. As far as systems getting more inherently secure well how long have the major players been working on that one and is it better or worse than say five years ago. Oh well for the whole article that I pulled the above quote from head over to Wired News and check out the rest.

Some Quick Notes

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:46:00 -0500

For Dell Ubuntu it is..

In February when Dell launched IdeaStorm as forum for customers to contribute ideas for product offerings, we received overwhelming feedback that customers wanted Linux on desktops and notebooks. As part of an overall effort to update our Linux program, today we are announcing a partnership with Canonical to offer Ubuntu on select consumer desktop and notebook products.

Anyone who reads this site with any regularity might have guessed I am a Ubuntu fan. I really hope Dell can pull this off but realize all experiences with Ubuntu are not always fun.

Saw on another site today there is some really wicked malware that can allegedly destroy a PC in than 10 Minutes.

A good 30MB+ of individual files are downloaded onto the PC, and it just kills it. Kills it right in the face. Kills it right in the face with a brick and then comes back with a breeze block to finish the job.

Really sounds nasty I am looking forward to the follow up on that one.

Then lately there is this whole Joost thing going on. Taking a page from Google and Gmail by making it an invite only thing at first to peak interest these guys have got it going on for the moment. We'll see how it works out as some big players have jumped in with them. Still not having seen the service myself it sounds like yet another way for them (whoever them represents) to get advertisements onto my PC. Self directed reruns and commercials sort of like cable only the way I want it instead of the package cable provides. Curious yeah but not that much though.

Of course with Microsoft's recent release of Vista things are starting to get interesting in the hackasphere. Shall we say game on?

Las Vegas (NV) - A hacker duo will demonstrate several ways of getting past Windows Vista security in an upcoming Black Hat training class. Polish security researcher Joanna Rutkowska and Alex Tereshkin will show off new rootkits and ways to defeat Vista’s vaunted BitLocker drive encryption.

An actual class on the subject of defeating a platform's security features for 3,000 dollars. Not my thing but I do find it interesting. I wonder if people attending a class like that sign NDA documents or something similar.

Last off in the incredible greed department there is this whole lets screw up internet radio thing happening as well. One thing is for certain the entertainment industry really doesn't get their target demographic anymore in fact they are completely clueless about them... a side effect of greed I am sure. Well thats it for this installment.

Saw This Today

nospam@example.com (Dale M) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 20:53:00 -0500

What OS do some billionaires (at least one anyway) run on their laptops.

What operating system do the heads of Fortune 500 companies run on their personal laptops? In the case of Michael S. Dell, president and CEO of Dell, it's Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

Yes, the head of Dell Inc., with a market-capitalization of just south of $56-billion, isn't just saying that Dell will be selling Linux-equipped PCs in the near future -- he's already running Linux at home...

The whole synopsis of Mr. Dell's $4000 rig can be found at DesktopLinux.com. Other things that I just happened to notice today was that as advertised Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn went final today.