Archive for October, 2007

Dutch consumer protection says to resist Vista

Published by Sean Et Cetera on October 16, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I was reading an article on Ars Technica about a consumer advocacy group in the the Netherlands who suggest that customers should downgrade to XP if they end up with Vista.

I’m convinced that maybe, just maybe, I’ve ended up with a different version of Windows Vista than other people. While I may have just upgraded my computer from Windows XP to Windows Vista within the last month, I have been using it at work since sometime in May, and have few problems. Hell, in some cases I’ve had things work better than they did in Windows XP. One example of this is my secondary monitor I use, which connects to the docking station my Latitude D820 uses throughout the week. I use the extended display option, and the monitor is on the left hand side and the laptop is on the right. Whenever I would undock for the weekend and use the computer at home, when I was next at work, XP was always convinced that the monitor was on the right hand side. While not a big issue, I then had to go into the settings each and every time. I don’t recall having to do that with Vista once, or if I did, it was the first time and the first time only.

Of course, this is just one of the many instances of people voicing issues that Vista isn’t ready. Again, it might just be me, but I have had better performance on both machines with Vista than I had with XP. On my home computer, I run Lord of the Rings Online, and I play in windowed mode so I can still easily get to Firefox, Pidgin, or Thunderbird while I’m playing in case I want to look something up or I’m doing something (riding between cities or crafting) that doesn’t require my attention. XP used to hate when I tried to do this, even with the full 2GB of memory I had in the system when I did a quick test run, whereas Vista has no issue. Since I have a decent video card, when I tab around between windows, via the Alt or Windows key method, it still displays what is going on in LotRO while I’m doing so. Sure, Macintosh OS X had this as one of their big things when they would talk about how awesome it was, so I see no reason not to say it about Windows.

I do agree with the article that Vista’s security model is superior to XP, and unlike the “Mac & PC” commercials (which to me is like saying, if it was for comparing cars, “Prius & American cars”), Vista does not prompt to stop you from doing something all the time. It’s just another step to get users to realize that they are about to do something that will affect their system. Sure, when you are trying to administer a system, those prompts might get annoying, but I like them nonetheless, and consider them good for normal, everyday users, especially since they prevent you from clicking anywhere else on the screen until you make a choice.

Due to the fact that computers are coming with Vista, and the users will need to get used to it, I personally don’t recommend downgrading from Vista to XP. My mom had asked me to do that on a new laptop she had and I simply said no, as the computer would no longer have many of the default programs that were set up for that laptop model, and eventually she would have to use Vista anyway and XP would no longer be supported, which require an upgrade back to Vista. On another note, since I don’t have to administer computers on a network or domain, install software that isn’t Vista compliant, or deal with locking down computers from users, I have no problem using Vista or recommending it to others, provided that the computer it’s going on can handle it. While I’m interested in Ubuntu, I also am interested in LotRO, and don’t want to have to boot back and forth between OS environments, so I’m sticking with Windows for now.

Then again, that’s just me.

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links for 2007-10-16

Published by Sean Et Cetera on October 16, 2007 in del.icio.us. 0 Comments

It’s Blog Action Day

Published by Sean Et Cetera on October 15, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Well, today is the blog action day for the environment.  I’ve already mentioned how I’ve been using my bike to cut down on how often I drive my car, which will decrease my total car emissions, registered my household for a service to decrease junk mail, which will help save paper and related resources, and about how I cut back on electricity usage for my computer, which decreases my overall need.  In most cases that I have started take part in more green living, it’s been for personal reasons.  While some would classify that as a selfish reason to go green, the benefits cannot be ignored, and if takes selfish reasons to do something like this that ultimately gets me in the habit of doing things that are environmentally friendly, then so be it.  What follows is a list of many of the things Meghan and I do.

  • Buying less bottled/canned beverages that I don’t need, but just want.  One example of this has been soda.  I don’t need to have soda every day, so I save it for when I’m out to dinner or as a personal reward for when I go to do laundry (I head over to DQ from L’Maries Laundromat).  Aside from reducing the amount of plastic bottles and aluminum cans I then have to recycle, this also leads to less soda consumed, which is just better for me anyway.
  • For the most commonly used lights in the apartment, I’ve switched over to CFL bulbs.  Sure, they don’t go to full brightness when turned on, but they’ll supposedly last longer, consumer less power, and generate less heat.
  • Seventh Generation products have appeared in our apartment, and I believe that this includes our dishwasher and laundry detergent, as well as some shower cleaner.  The products made by Seventh Generation are made from renewable resources that are non-toxic, phosphate free, and biodegradable.  I’ll also mention that the laundry hasn’t smelled that clean coming out of the washer before; it smells fresh.  For the dishes that just makes them even safer to use.
  • Along with using the Seventh Generation dishwasher detergent, we’ve also set the dishwasher to not run as hot as it used to, which uses less power.
  • When I bring lunch in from home, which I’m trying to do more often anyway, I try to either use a reusable container, or if I have to use a plastic bag, making sure that if it can be reused, it will be.
  • Meghan has always had an inkjet printer, but I really don’t use it.  However, with all the articles she has had to request copies of or print out, if they have a blank side, she’ll use them again for printing things out or for grocery lists or notes.
  • When we need to get more ink for her printer, we get the refurbished cartridges.
  • 99% of our scrap paper at home gets recycled.  If it’s important, it goes through the shredder first.
  • When we do eat out, we try and go to local, sit-down restaurants instead of getting fast food.
  • Technology wise, I have a digital camera, a wireless keyboard, and a wireless mouse.  Instead of consistently forking out money on expensive batteries designed for such devices, I purchased a battery recharger set of similar batteries near the beginning of the year.  I would have had to purchase at least fifteen to twenty batteries since then.
  • There’s a small farmers market in BG that runs until sometime in the fall and is open on Saturday mornings, within walking distance.  We’ve made sure to go there about twice every three weeks.  Not only are we supporting local growers, but we are getting food that hasn’t had to be shipped over long distances to get to a supermarket.
  • Even when we shop at the supermarket, we try and purchase what vegetables we can from the organic section.
  • Meghan’s a vegetarian, and as such, most of our meals are meatless, and I’m always asked how I can manage not eating meat.  It’s really not that bad, and it’s better for me.  It also means that when I do get meat, either when we eat out or the few times I purchase it, it’s a treat; it’s not something I have every day.

That’s quite the list.  Be sure to see the list of 50 things you can do to help the environment over at Blog Action Day… blog.

You need 3.99 PB free to copy those files and Window Whistler

Published by Sean Et Cetera on October 14, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

So, for whatever reason, Meghan’s computer went stupid this morning and kept rebooting; I couldn’t even get it into safe mode and her monitor did not want to work, something I’ve seen on three separate HP Pavillion monitors. After all, I had problems when I had my HP Pavillion (monitor and hard drive), Ryan had problems (hard drive), and Meghan has had problems (2 Pavillion monitors and hard drive), so I’m not too surprised.

Anyway, I had to connect her computer up to my monitor to even see what was going on, and even then, I couldn’t actually get to see the error message. I realized, though, there was one thing I could do: set my digital camera to video mode and simply record the screen as the computer booted. Once I captured the flicker of information before the reboot, I played the recording back, and then went frame by frame to the point that the message was displayed. All in all, that took about 2 minutes to do, which took less time than had I tried to boot to the command prompt to try and then run the registry to turn off the registry key that causes the reboot after a system crash. Sometimes you just have to be resourceful.

I was able to get the information off of the hard drives by connecting them to my computer, but there were some files that were corrupt. While I was copying some of the files, I kept getting an error message that couldn’t be true. The hard drive on Meghan’s computer was 40 GB, and mine is 233 GB. There was one folder that didn’t want to copy, because it supposedly had over 4 PB of data and I didn’t have enough room.

How much room do I need again?

One TB (terabyte) is 1000 GB, so one PB (petabyte) is 1000 TB. Somehow, what ever quantum particle hit the hard drive really did a number on it. I’m just goin gto leave it at that for now and deal with it tomorrow after I can go to work and get a UBCD.

3.99 PB. Sheesh.

Also, since I had never really had to boot her computer into safe mode, I noticed that the option available to me was “Microsoft Windows Whistler Professional”. I really don’t recall ever seeing this, but a quick google found an article on PC World:

Though still whistling, Microsoft’s next desktop operating system is finally stepping out of the dark with this week’s release of Whistler Beta 1 to a limited group of developers and hardware vendors. (See “Microsoft Releases Whistler Beta.”)

The successor to both its consumer-oriented Windows Millennium Edition and business-strength Windows 2000 operating systems, Whistler is due on store shelves in the second half of 2001. But Windows 95 stalwarts beware: you won’t be able to simply upgrade Windows 95 machines to Whistler.

So, Meghan’s computer, which she would have purchased sometime in 2001, technically has one of the earliest versions of XP on it. Every other aspect tends to report that it is Windows XP Home, not Whistler, so I’m surprised by this. Well, you learn something new every day.

Green living: cost vs. reward

Published by Sean Et Cetera on October 14, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I’ve always been aware of some of the basic concepts of green living , in some way or another, be it through my family, friends, or community, and it is something that I’ve been slowly getting into the last year or so, and it’s partially tied to what I would like to do if I had a house: growing at least some of our food, using natural light, grey water collection, electricity from the grid supplemented by wind-turbine generated, etc.  All of those are things that would take money and/or time to accomplish, and really, that’s what switching to green options tends to entail.

I guess the first place to start are with those three Rs of green living: reduce, reuse, and recycle.  We all know about them, but without some conscious effort, it’s hard to put into practice.  Let’s take a soda or water bottle as an example.

  • Recycling the bottle would mean you purchase it from a store or vending machine, use it, and when done, into the correct recycling bin it goes.
  • Reusing the bottle would mean that when you’re done, you rinse it out and use it for water (or some other liquid/libation) for the rest of that day, or for a couple days.  Ideally, you’d eventually recycle it.
  • Reducing the bottle would mean you don’t buy the bottle in the first place.  I’m not saying you wouldn’t be able to drink soda or water, but you’d have to prepare a head of time to have some other container with you and get the water or soda from somewhere that dispenses it.

The entire bottle situation of course doesn’t take into account any thing else that could make the purchase of the bottle a “poor” green decision, such as the amount of energy and resources used to make the bottle or process the (eventual) contents, plus shipping, storage, etc.  Sure, those are going to be factors, in one way or another, but there are ways to make them be not as bad.  Moving on, with the above example, recycling is the easiest, and reducing the one requiring actual planning ahead of time, but even with the act of recycling being that simple, you can easily go out and witness someone throwing an empty bottle or can into the garbage when five feet away from them is a recycling bin.  It just boggles my mind when I see something like that happen.

I titled this article “Green living: cost vs. reward”, as there is a point where sometimes it requires spending something, not necessarily money, to get the reward.  Sometimes it’s time, such as the time it takes to prepare at the beginning of the day to take a bottle with you to fill up with water, coffee, etc as the day goes on, or to get up earlier to walk, bike, carpool, or take a bus somewhere.  At other times it’s money that is the cost, such as buying a food product because it is organic, made from recycled materials, or eco-friendly.  It may also be the cost of not getting something you want, but may not need, such as a bottle of soda, or a food item that is not eco-friendly.

However, I’d like to point out that a lot of what I have started to do in regards to green living has been done to decrease the amount of money I have to spend on things I don’t want.  For example, I used to leave my computer on 24/7, sometimes even when I knew I wouldn’t be home for the weekend. But then I thought about this, and even though I liked always having the computer ready to go when ever I needed it, did it really need to be running while I was asleep or at work?  No, it didn’t.  So I decided that I would only have it on when I would be using it with any consistency, that is, in the evenings after work and the day time and evening on the weekends.  Even assuming that I might have the computer on for 14 hours or so on each day of the weekend, I still would be hard pressed to have it on for more than 7 hours after work each day, so it averages out to only being on 8 hours a day in a given 7 day week; one third of the time as I had it on before.  Once you factor in that if my computer was on, so was the monitor, the sound system, the cable modem, and the router, that’s quite a bit.  Since I’ve been turning the computer off, and have it all going to a power strip to stop any energy vampires (devices that still draw power when on standby or while disconnected or off but still plugged in), we’ve seen a decrease in our month-to-month electric bill.  Since we are paying less, we’ve opted to pay $5 extra each month to use electricity produced by the large turbines outside the city.

Sometimes green living can simply be taking a step back and asking yourself “do I really need to do what I’m about to do?”.

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