iP3K

Last week my laptop was happily refusing to boot into Windows Vista because it has been deactivated due to some troubleshooting I had to do. To keep it short, I had compressed the main drive in witch Vista was installed and could not boot. I then had to use an old Vista pre-release DVD to restore the boot loader, however not using the same disk as for the install might of proven itself to be a big mistake.

Nevertheless, I was not ready to move back to Windows XP and decided to install the latest version of Ubuntu on my laptop. I have been testing the various versions of Ubuntu since version 4.10 and I thank the Lord that they have made so many progress in the past few years. Everything works smoothly, all my hardware was detected and even my on-board wireless card was flagged as using proprietary drivers (still worked fine). The Ubuntu install CD lets you run a live version of the OS directly from the CD and gives you the option to install the OS on the hard drive.

I love the nice graphical effects you can add using Compiz, by now you must of seen a video of this on YouTube, with a spinning cube, rain or windows spinning around. Most of these are distractors from the main purpose that is stability and ease of use.

None of this is new really, I know how OpenOffice works but in order to be productive I’ll have to forget about those nice improvements Microsoft Office 2007 provided. It will be a bumpy ride, but I am to think that for a laptop on which I will not do any serious gaming there is no reason why Linux cannot take it’s rightful place as an alternate OS.

While listening to the latest TWiT, it was brought to my attention that the world seems to hate Windows Vista. That is not just coming from technology personnalities like Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton. A few weeks ago, I heard a friend from work saying she is shopping for a laptop but doesn’t want to have Vista on it. Again, on a totally different occasion, someone saw my Vista laptop and asked me if Vista was a “shitty” as everyone says it is. A recent blog post written by Don Reisinger threw me off  when the writer claims that “Microsoft must abandon Vista to save itself“.

The idea of have Microsoft withdraw an operating system that comes on a wide number of new PCs is utterly stupid! I’ve been using Vista for months now and I can’t complain about it, of course there are minor performance issue (that is if you’re running XP hardware). The price for upgrade is steep, especially for the Ultimate version. But that is no reason to stop innovation, the old formula of if it works why change it can’t always work. Do you really want XP to still be there in 2010? When you are pushing the technology forward you spur up innovation, programmers have to work with new structures and all. More then ever there are nice alternatives (Linux and Mac OS) and now is the perfect time for Windows to show they too can do something different and try to make the best of it.

Previous posts:

• Windows Vista RC2
• Windows Vista

Back in 2000 I bought myself a scanner. It was only $99 CND and found it to be quite useful from time to time. It’s nothing fancy but I really have a practical use from the HP Scanjet 2200c. I remember back then was the time Windows XP became available and the documentation for the scanner informed me that drivers for Windows XP were available through their website and all.

Years have gone by and I still use this scanner and since it’s fully functional there is no need to purchase a new one, or those fancy printers that are multi-purpose. When I first started to test Windows Vista (before it’s release), the drivers worked with any trouble until a certain build and then my scanner became inoperable on Windows Vista because the drivers were not recognised. HP official word is that that equipment is too old anyway and they won’t bother to make new drivers for it. So for sometime I plugged my scanner into my Windows XP laptop instead but I know eventually all my systems will run Vista.

Today I found a post on an Dutch forum a way to trick Vista in accepting the old drivers. Don’t connect the scanner yet. First you need to find the HP PrecisionScan LTX software and drivers available via HP’s website. You need to extract the files out the executable and run the setup.exe as a Windows XP Service Pack 2 compatible program (right click the file, then proprieties, compatibility tab). Once you’re done installing the program you’ll need to browse to the folder were it was installed (inside the Program Files folder), there should be nine executables in there. Change all of their compatibility mode to Windows 2000. Once it’s done plug the scanner via USB and Windows Vista will recognise the hardware and use the drivers already installed.

On my first attempt the HP PrecisionScan LTX crashed and could not initiate a scan, it was partially expected from what I could decipher on the forum post.

[UPDATE]: It seems I was too quick to rule out HP’s software. I’ve tryed it again and it works like a charm. The following options are viable alternate scanning software but I’d better stick with the original now that it is working

The final step is to find a scanning software that is compatible with Windows Vista, like VueScan and use it. I can confirm I’ve been able to scan documents and images without trouble. However since VueScan is a paid software I’ll try and run XSane instead; it’s open source and worked wonders with my scanner when using Linux.

Just a quick update on what I’ve been using. Last summer I got around to try a few of the beta versions of Windows Vista. I kept dual booting with Windows XP because compatibility wasn’t exactly where I wanted it. Whether it is support for some of my favorite video games or some software I’m used to using. Anyhow, my system was getting loaded with too many operation systems (XP and Linux) so I decided to go for a clean install. What better than to pick up Windows Vista and try living with it. To learn more about my thoughts on the software I suggest reading my overview of Windows Vista Release Candidate 2. One drawback from XP is that I cannot use my scanner (HP Scanjet 2200c) because Hewlett-Packard doesn’t value it’s customers and will not release new drivers for it. The major issue I have to deal with is related to audio playback. From time to time the sound just stops working and won’t come back until a reboot…

Now for all you people out there wondering if they should upgrade to Vista I will say: It’s a great operating system. I even believe it will be better than Windows XP ever was. However, considering the price to upgrade I would suggest waiting on the purchase of a new PC (or Mac). Rumor has that a service pack should be released by the end of the year and will most definitely improve the OS further.

I don’t know how many people like myself don’t have cable at home, nor satellite TV. I’ve been living off over the air program which gives you a fair selection of shows. None the less it’s not like there are a lot of interesting things on TV and that I wouldn’t have the time to watch it much. A while back I touted the great Open Source program called Democracy, it let’s you subscribe to downloadable shows that are completely free. There is something for every taste but here are a few that I like (as a tech savvy person) it’s mostly technology shows and game shows.

DL.TV, Diggnation, IGN Weekly, The Totally Rad Show, Lab Rats, On the Spot, inDigital, CNet TV, and X-Play. These shows are weekly editions for the most but to get a better idea of their schedule you should follow the links to their website. The best way to enjoy videos on the web is to aggregate them in one place. This way you don’t have to jump from a website to an other. In my case I use these shows RSS feeds that give a link for the download as well as information about the episode. Democracy can be set up to automatically download the shows. This way you have a free TV on Demand on your computer (if you have the right set up you can send the image to a nearby TV, like I do). The shows are usually free but they are sponsored which is a good bargain for free.

One thing I found to be unexpected is how you quickly have those models take over the Internet, just like your huge TV stations like FOX, NBC or Global, many video cast affiliate themselves to a larger brand to create the equivalent of a channel. Big networks like CNet, Revision3 or Ziff Davis are a few owners of several IPTV shows I watch. So any day you’re bored with what you have on the small screen, head over to a smaller one (relative) to get your fix.

When an idea gets momentum, you either go against the wave and make something new, or you jump on it and improve yourself. By now I’m sure you’ve seen the Mac vs PC ads that have been promoting Apple products for months. You might of even seen a spoof version comparing the PS3 and the Wii. But now Novell will try to make everyone realize that Linux is an other player that requires to be discovered. Just like the Mac it’s for a different style of user and it’s finally ready to be deployed to the world. Here is the ad in question:

However, I’m starting to feel that the joke is getting old and I don’t enjoy it as much as the first time. They better figure out something better for next time.

All the players are now in the arena and the battle of the gaming consoles is far from over. It is true that the price tag of the PS3 has been facing serious criticism from the start but I still think that this gaming platform is way cool. I’ve been finding it hard to find a good reason to love the PlayStation 3, but I guess that from time to time their future looks a bit brighter. Today at GDC (Game Developers Conference), Phil Harison announced the PlayStation Home would be the online answer the PlayStation Network would have to Microsoft’s Xbox Live, and Nintendo’s Mii.

The most coherent analogy to PlayStation Home would be the well known Second Life; you get an avatar, character that you design to your likings, to evolve in a virtual space where you can meet friends, show off trophies and do a ton of interactive stuff. The keynote showed the ability to view trailers and movies from within the virtual environment, basically you got your character and a TV in it’s apartment, watching a trailer. Words cannot do full justice to Sony’s latest innovation; watch listen to the nice lady and be amazed, I’m sure impressed by what they pulled out of the hat.

One device to rule them all, One device to find them, One device to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Do you think everything is starting to be bundled so they can take advantage of you? Let’s bundle your Internet, phone and television services together. Let’s do the same with devices and put a camera on every cellphone out there. Now that the digital music era is healthier let’s all make them MP3 players. Further more color LCD screens are cheaper, your music player should play movies as well. All this in the research of one goal: Bring all your services in the hand of one company to ensure they preserve all the profit.

I remember how I was drooling over the iPhone earlier this year when it was announced, looking back to it I’d like to change my tune (no pun intended). When you got a device that does a lot of things it might be getting sloppy at some of them. In many cases a product or services gets good at one thing, they become so good at it that they become an industry standard. So just like the iPod became the lead of music players I don’t see why the Apple branded phone should become a revolution on the mobile phone business.

My advice for everyone out there. Find a device that does it’s work best. Stick to it and get an other device for other stuff, in the end the choice is yours but this was my word of caution not to be indoctrinated to easily.