It has been one month now that I started to use Windows 7 based Dell Vostro 1320 notebook on daily basis. The hardware parameters of this little thing are: Core 2 Duo 2.26, 500 GB HDD, 8 GB of RAM, 13" screen, Windows 7 Professional (64 bit of course, how else with all that RAM). All this with 3 year next business day warranty for about $1400 CAD - not bad deal at all.
I have been "living in a command line" for last few weeks. Pretty refreshing experience. As result, I had to google a lot, especially when it comes to e.g. subtle differences between tar options on Ubuntu Linux and Open Solaris ... While doing that, I somehow stumbled upon this great writeup on cultural differences between Linux and Windows. Nicely written, no flamewars - obviously pro-Linux, but no Microsoft or Windows bashing and lots of insight. Higly recommended.
I had again the not-so infrequent pleasure of setting up fresh copy of Windows development stack. We were moving few machines between projects and to make sure that no forgotten source files are left on the harddisk, we reformatted and reinstalled Windows from scratch. It is usually good idea anyway, because developers like to install strange tools and utilities and generally customize machines to their own taste, which tend to be unique and is seldom shared.
The natural gravity of our environment keeps pulling me out of scripting and Ruby world back to .Net zone :-). Out of curiosity, I looked into how easy or hard is it to access other database from Ruby, than the default MySQL which dominates all books, samples and tutorials.
I have found three ways (at least), one likely platform independent and two Windows only. The platform independent requires module ADO.rb and works with the DBI interface. This sounds very similar to the way how Perl used to access databases, so I put this at the end of the list (some details are here). First Windows only methods used ODBC - no, thanks. Configuring machine specific data sources is not the way I wanted.
This year unusually early, we switched the Daylight Saving Time. The clocks did spring ahead one hour on Sunday morning. Btw, this is a good mnemonic how to remember which direction does the clock go: it Springs ahead and it Falls back ... Technically, it was decision of the US legislative to start DST early but because of the integration of the two economies, Canada had not much choice, just to follow. So, for next three weeks or so, we are one hour closer to Europe.
In order to provide HD Video capabilities and to appease content creators, Microsoft went very far in making sure the Vista is not seen as a tool for content piracy. Did they went too far ? What will be the real cost of this contraversial features ?
Listen (or read) the comments of people that understand the DRM topic better than me and make your own opinion:
* How and why Windows Vista has incorporated the most pervasive and invasive system for digital rights management ever created, AACS - as MP3 and PDF
I found today something that (after long time) make me to say Wow! - and it had nothing to do with Apple or OS-X. Simple small system management utility for Windows modestly named System info, written by fellow Canadian Gabriel Topala (originally from Romania, but living in Toronto, as I found out from his resume on his web site).
So what is so fantastic about this program:
- it is small (single file, 1.3 MB)
- portable no installer required
- free (although author welcomes donations and encourages registration)
- amazing depth. It gives you more information than you expected, often more than you were aware you may get!
The main (and only) window of the program has three panes:
Using PocketPC with Windows is very easy, assumed that you are using Outlook. Synchronization is straightforward, works out of the box. If you are keeping your contacts in other software than Outlook, you can often find 3rd party software that does the synchronization - or at least provides the plugin. The selection of the solutions is fairly large.
On Mac, you are in similar situation if you want to use Palm based PDA. With Pocket PC synchronization, selection is limited. For direct synchronization between Mac address book and iCal, you have basically 2 options (or more precisely, at least two options): PocketMac or The Missing Sync. Both will do the job, but the Missing Sync seems to be more modern: it supports Intel processors on Mac side and Windows Mobile 5. Also the Web site of the Missing sync has more professional, Mac-like look. I found the review of both, but little bit dated ...
I have read somewhere that quotation is safe way how to say something potentially dangerous or controversial without being legally exposed :-). So today I am going to quote an authority in computer security - Steve Gibson on some very interesting Vista related security information.
Steve is doing (together with Leo Laporte) excellent weekly podcast "Security Now!". It is so great that I have decided to download as many back episodes as I could find on their site and started to listen to them in the chronological order, back from June 2006. It was worth of every minute. I am now somewhere in August 2006 and Steve Gibson (== SG) covered interesting tricks what to do with you hosts file, very nicely explained the usefulness of netstat program and started multi-episode sequence on virtualization and virtaul machines. Thanks to many years of experience, Steve always gives a historical perspective on every topic he covers.