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Update: MSE is available now for everyone. On 3 October 2009, I have moved all my computers from AVG Free to MSE.
Microsoft has entered the business of AntiVirus software by simplifying and repackaging their Corporate Security suite for home users. The new program is called Microsoft Security Essentials. When this is released, it will be free for use by non-commercial users and will run on Windows XP, Vista and Version 7.
Currently the Beta is closed, but the program will be available later this year. Based on all the reviews I’ve seen – Security Now for example – this is a light weight, but very robust anti-virus.
When this comes out I will be installing it with an eye toward eliminating my use of Free AVG.
More news when it appears,
- windy
Update: Fixed in a new release of the Exporter. A working version of the scene is here.
Fails in Firefox 3.0.12 and 3.5.2. Website reported as a failed site.
Using Max 2009 on Vista x86, SP1, I created and exported a simple scene with a knot, 3 lights and a camera.
Here is the scene on this website.
The model does not play in Firefox 3.0.13, either from the file system or from this website.
It does play in MS IE 8 both from the file system or from the website.
The samples on the hypercosm website play in both MSIE 8 and Firefox 3.
I’ve been using a Media Server for sometime to view photos and play music and podcasts on my PS3, but recently I’ve upgraded my Media Server and found a new server that provides Video On Demand from Netflix and other video sources.
Here’s a test of a Google Spreadsheet posted here to this page.
Starting with an Open Office 3.0 spreadsheet Import failed. Then after converting the sheet to XLS it failed. Finally converting to CSV worked.
Notice that the Frozen Row 1 of the above sheet is not frozen.
I’ll try this again for publishing complex data to my websites. Since I can add formulae, it should be interesting.
- windy
I just descovered Audacity, an open source audio editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. I’ve been using Goldwave for a long time, and Adobe Audition V1 a little, but Audacity looks like it has features and a UI paradigm that I like better.
Wakoopa is a free software service that keeps track of what software you have been using. I heard about it on the Windows Weekly podcast from back in January. I’m just now catching up on missed episodes.
To use Wakoopa, just sign up for a free account and install the little program on your system[s]. The little applet [ 3MB ] uploads the info to the website so you can review and share the statistics. (more…)
As you may know from reading other posts here or from checking out my photo site, I use a Nikon D300 and a Nikon S550 camera. I have about 16GB of CF cards for my D300 and an 8GB SD card for my S550, but these are not enough for a week long vacation where I’m going to be taking quite a few pictures. For past trips, like the trip I took to Boise, ID for a week, I have taken my older laptop with me. And while on that trip I bought a 160GB USB hard drive as a second backup device. As you can imagine, a laptop is not a convenient device to carry on a trip.
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.
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.
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.
(more…)
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.
(more…)
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…)
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.
(more…)
Here is a list of products that do not support Vista x64. This is shameful for several reasons:
- Vista is the currently shipping OS and x64 is the “Ultimate” expression of that OS.
- 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
- Most medium to high end systems are x64 capable.
- Most high end system support as much as 4GB of memory.
- 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.
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.