Some research on SysInterals.com has turned up XPerf, a performance tool written by Microsoft.

This tool records a number of kernel mode activities and then allows analysis in detail, esp of interrupts and Deferred Procedure Calls.

Using XPerf on the ailing laptop has shown that the culprit is acpi.sys.

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OpenOffice Base 2.4 running on Vista Ultimate [x86 or x64].

Dynamic reports fail with the data not matching the column headers. Static reports work.

Update: This is a known problem. The problem is that the name TITLE doesn’t work as a report column. This means that no column of a database table can be named TITLE if dynamic tables are used.

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When building a database of my DVD collection which includes BLOB images of png images of the covers, the database can be backed up, but it cannot be restored. This of course makes the backups useless. The images are 475×475 pixel PNG images.

UPDATE: Problem solved. Parameter max_allowed_packet is the packet size for requests. This defaults to 1M and needs to be larger to allow this restore to work. Setting the max_allowed_packet parameter to 10M allowed the restore to complete successfully.
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I just got a new Alienware m15x. Great machine. Very nice design. But I’m running into a couple of problems.

Update: 8 June 2008 9pm- I spoke too soon. The problem is back in spades. See section later in this post regarding use of SysInternals Process Explorer with more data on the problem.

Update: 8 June 2008 - The CPU Busy problem is not occurring for about the past 2 hours. The system was idle - but with the CPU busy for several hours today. There appears to be no reason for this change. It bears watching.

Update: 7 June 2008 - New information added on CPU Busy.
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The WindyWeather site is now up on Lunar Pages. After being with Godaddy for several years, the performance began to get slower and slower. It was taking literally minutes to post an article on Wordpress. After an hour with Godaddy support and no satisfaction for why performance was so bad, I looked for other hosting services. More »

On 6 April 2008, this site, when it was on another hosting service, was attacked and an <iFrame tag appended to every php and html file on the site. The <iFrame tag pointed back to the following domains:

cdpuvbhfzz(dot)com
ccfelomvhk(dot)com

The attack was apparently perpetrated because two php.ini parameters were left that allow exploits:
allow_url_fopen = on
register_globals = on

These settings have now been changed to OFF.
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The PS3 is probably the best, and reasonably priced, Blu-Ray player on the market. Now that the HD format wars are over, it was time to get a Blu-Ray player

All the Windows hype about the “Media Editions” of Windows was never very clear. Apparently the Media Edition contains the features necessary to serve various files to the other entertainment systems in the home. Music and video players can play files from your desktop harddrive via these servers. Now with a new PS3, Media Services is becoming more useful. It will be interesting to play photos and videos from a server. The PS3 only has a 40GB harddrive and the file management features of the PS3 are very primitive.
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Vista requires signed drivers. I found out the hard way a few weeks ago when I installed a demo version of Corel Photo Album 6 that ignoring this error can be very troublesome. I have found out the hard way that you must uninstall any programs that install unsigned drivers before you reboot. Vista refuses to boot when there is an unsigned driver. Recovery requires that you boot with the recovery disk and then do a system repair. This is a very nasty and time consuming fix. You can use a System Recovery after the uninstall, but do not reboot before you attempt this.
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Ubuntu and Windows can work together on a network of course, using winbind and samba. But Ubuntu doesn’t come that way and the configuration of Samba needs some work to make it happen.

I’ve got my systems all file sharing now, but it took some doing since I’m not a Samba expert.
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There has been much bad-mouthing of Vista in the press… A continuous low hum in the blogs and podcasts that Vista is terrible. With no data and no references. Well here is some data. A list of products that work just fine on Vista.
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Here is a list of products that do not support Vista x64. This is shameful for several reasons:

1. Vista is the currently shipping OS and x64 is the “Ultimate” expression of that OS.
2. Vista x64 is the second generation of x64 OSs, so it is hardly brand-new and the requirements for supporting the system are well known
3. Most medium to high end systems are x64 capable.
4. Most high end system support as much as 4GB of memory.
5. One can only make use of 4GB of memory with an x64 edition OS. With an x86 edition one only can address 2.7 or 3.5GB of memory depending on the hardware available. See this Alienware Support post.

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When settings files are transferred as part of a program update, it may be interesting to assure that the files are not corrupted, or changed in such a way that the program is compromised. One can do this with XML Signatures.
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Trying to build an XML Signing application using the XMLSecurity Library.
Using Visual Studio 2005, and Windows Forms.
And also eventually Ubuntu 7.10 with KDEV. [not started yet]
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I recently purchased a 15″ PhotoFrame for what seemed like a great price of $250US. Of course now they have a WiFi version for $270. But I have a 17″ LCD monitor that wasn’t pulling it’s weight anymore, so I wondered how much trouble it would be to make a PhotoFrame from that.
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I chose Puppy Linux 3.01 and burned a CDROM. I’ve got Nero 8, so that part was a snap.

When I booted the CDROM, I got a much better result than for Ubuntu:

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The next problem is installing Puppy on the CF card.
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I used QVCS a while ago and need source control again, so I’m a returning user.

I’ve got the latest trial [3.10.15], running on Vista x64, quad processor, 4GB memory and 500GB HD.

I created a simple project, no problems in creating the project. But when I check it out I get an error on SUO file.

I’m not sure if I need to source control this file or not, but that shouldn’t be a problem if I do, as far as I know.

UPDATE:
SUO files don’t need to be checked in. The problem appears to be that the SUO file is “hidden” in Windows. Problem solved.
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Here are some images for 2Moons

2Moons looks like it might be a very interesting MMORPG to investigate. There is a free demo you can find here.

Evaluation of Readerware V 2.984 on Windows XP Sp2

In general the program is very functional and solved my problem nicely. However, there are some problems that are of interest.

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Here’s what I have installed that’s relevant to MS Visual Studio.

Click for a larger view.