imnuts’ Home

Well, I've neglected my blog for the past week for various reasons, although watching the stats really made me want to post. I've been working on a couple things for both myself and PROnetworks in the web design area, plus I've had to worry about getting some stuff submitted for this coming semester/year at college. Anyway, that isn't what this post is about, so I'll cut to the chase.

What this is about is participation in the Windows Live QnA Beta. Since I was lucky enough to become a Windows Live Butterfly, I got into this program as well. You may be wondering what it is. Basically, it's a website where you can ask questions on various topics and get answers from the community. It is sort of like a forum, but questions are only open for answers so long. The other nice thing is that you can vote for what you think is the best answer. You get "points" for logging in, asking questions, answering questions and other things, but they don't really go towards much. There are some really cool features to the site. Basically, they are hoping to gather as much information as possible, so that if you have a question on how something works or anything, you can just go here and look quickly and the info will be there. Read more »

As I noted earlier today, Microsoft released Vista Build 5472 to Beta Testers today. I have since learned that this is a CTP build and should be available to TechNet and MSDN members as well, so enjoy if you have a subscription or are a member of the beta program. If you aren't a member of any of the above, just wait until RC1 is released to the public. Unfortunately, you will have to have installed and activated Beta 2 to be able to download RC1, but that isn't an issue for me and not the topic of this post.

For many people out there, moving to 64 bit has been a very painful process. Manufacturers put hardware out there and then decided that they don't want to support it, so we're left with unsigned drivers for our systems, if we can even find those, to get things working. I'm sure that there are many people out there having this issue. The problem I'm having is with my on-board Promise Fasttrack 378 SATA/RAID controller, but there are many other devices out there with the same issue. For some, the drivers aren't really a problem as it is non-critical hardware, or something they don't use. I have a somewhat needed drive that is sitting on my controller that isn't supported, like backups, installation keys for various software/betas I have and install, and just some other random things. It isn't really needed, just highly wanted. Up until this latest build though, installing unsigned drivers hasn't been much of an issue. There has been the bcdedit method Read more »

Today, Windows Vista build 5472 was released to beta testers. I wasn't actually around when it was released unfortunately, but I do have it downloaded and ready to be burnt to DVD. All data has been backed up that I need, so as soon as I can get to it, it will be installed. If you are looking for screenshots of build 5472, you should watch the PROnetworks Album as there should be a wealth of screenshots post there shortly. If you are in the Beta Program on Connect, head to the downloads section and get the build, which is about the same size as build 5456.

Another thing that you should do, if you haven't done so already, is download VistaBootPRO 2.1 Beta. It features the following changes from 2.0:

• Fixed bug which occurred on some systems when renaming entries.
• Added advisement to backup bcd file before making any changes.
• Adjusted font size on pages.
• Refined Check for .net 2.0 framework prior to installation.
• Updated backup file dialogs and default filename.
• Added code to check for valid partition before creating new entry.
• Updated Help File.
• Updated Codebase.

The main reason for an updated release so soon after version 2.0 was the bug occuring on systems with renaming/reordering entries. Sorry for any inconvenience for people on this. It has also been confirmed to work on the latest build just released as well (build 5472), so you will be able to use it on all Vista builds that utilize bcdedit.exe for altering the boot menu.

I've been really busy with a variety of various different things this past week. Due to all the other randomness that has cropped up around here, I haven't really had a chance to post as much as I have wanted to. The fact that I was so busy with a bunch of other stuff also sidetracked my fairly often and caused me to forget the topic I was going to write on. So, I'll try to bring a bunch of the stuff that happened over the week here and comment on all of it in one nice post.

The one software release that I did find rather notable, I have already posted about. VMWare Server 1.0 was released this week, and was also opened up from being a relatively expensive application to being free to the public. The really nice thing about VMWare Server, at least in comparison to Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005 which is currently in its beta stages, is the features of VMWare Server. Microsoft's Virtual Server, while being compatible with Virtual PC (also free now), is not openly compatible outside of Microsoft's own line of operating systems. So, where many people are running a Linux operating system on their server, seeing as Windows Server 2003 is likely out of the price range of many home consumers, people can still run this on their actual server computers. You also have much better virtualization technology and support with VMWare. You can use USB devices from within the virtual operating system, which many people see as a huge benefit. The virtual networks are also much more organized with VMWare. The other thing that it offers over Microsoft is performance, although this is only a slight benefit. The VMWare virtual machines will tend to run slightly closer to how the real operating system would run compared to Virtual Server 2005. Read more »

I'm sure this has happened to all of us. You're browsing around the net and find this great deal on something that you really want. The only problem is that your short on cash and can't use a credit card to buy it, so you end up missing the deal. I know that I've had this several times where there was something on sale at Newegg and other retailers, but I just couldn't find the money to actually buy it at the time of the sale. There is a way around this at Dell, of all places. I have managed to find a way around missing out on the big sale at certain areas within the massive Dell online store.

About a month ago now, I mentioned that I found a great deal on Dell computers that they were offering to higher education students. It was a sale that was tremendous, about $5-600 off computer systems, and the upgrade parts were reduced in price as well. I've been wanting a laptop for a long time now, so I figured that this was my chance to actually get one. The problem with it was, though, that the sale ended on June 30, and there was no way I was going to be able to purchase it by then on my own. I configured a system as I wanted to though just to see how much I would need in the odd chance I could buy one, but there was no luck though. I even went as far as adding the system to my cart and then getting the shipping and handling, along with tax info. Basically, I knew how much this would cost down to the cent. Read more »