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By Walter, August 21, 2009 4:22 pm

I recently wiped my computer to do a clean install of Windows 7 RTM. After doing a regular backup with Windows Home Server, I decided to cut myself a break and buy a new hard drive. I ended up buying a Seagate 1TB to store my documents and a 300 GB Raptor for my main system drive. The 500 GB drive I had in there before is going into the home server for extra storage. My current hard drive setup is now:

• 300 GB Raptor  – System Drive. Small on size, but at 10,000rpm, a very fast drive.
• 1 TB Seagate – Documents, Pictures, Music, etc.
• 500 GB Seagate – dedicated drive for virtual machines
• 150 GB Raptor – dedicated scratch drive for Adobe Photoshop

Instead of taking the time to back up that old drive (which housed all my documents), I bought a Thermaltake BlackX from Newegg.

It’s a clever little external bay that lets you drop a SATA drive right in. I had an extra external drive bay that I used to use for such things, but with the BlacX, I don’t have to worry about taking off the cover, connecting cables, and so on. You just have to slide the drive in place. And given the number of other people’s drives I work on, that’s pretty convenient.

It has eSata and USB 2.0 ports and actually comes with both cables. Most eSata devices do not include the cable.

They also have a model that accepts two drives at the same time.

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By Walter, July 20, 2009 11:28 pm

Deviantart has a great chart that shows pics of many different types of computer hardware, from hard drives to memory to processors. You can view it online, download the full size image for free (it’s a big file), or even buy a print from them.

Stumbled across this one on Lifehacker. Good stuff!

Computer hardware poster 1.7 by ~Sonic840 on deviantART

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By Walter, August 13, 2007 12:49 pm

Ars Technica has the first 2 parts of a multiple part story up on the history of the Amiga computer:

History of the Amiga Part 1

It’s a great read, since they go not only into the technical details, but also into the video game politics of the day. Each part is multiple pages, so it’s not a quick read, but it is fascinating. In my computing lifetime, I’ve had an Apple II, Commodore 64, original Macintosh, a bunch of PCs, and a bunch of Macs. I still remember the Amiga as one of my favorite computers I ever owned. I gave it to a friend long ago, but now I really wish I still had it.

The Amiga was so ahead of its time that even back then it was capable of some things that modern computers still can’t do. Here’s a quote from part 2:

Another new invention for the Amiga computer was the “copper” chip. This was essentially a special-purpose CPU designed specifically for direct manipulation of the display. It had only three instructions, but it could directly access any part of the other display chips at any time. What’s more, it could turn amazing tricks in the fraction of a second that it took for the monitor to refresh the display. This allowed a trick that no other computer has ever reproduced: the ability to view multiple different screens, opened at different resolutions, at the same time. These “pull-down” screens would amaze anyone who saw them. Modern computers can open different screens at different resolutions (say, for example, to open a full-screen game at a lower resolution than the desktop is displaying, in order to play the game faster or at a higher frame rate) but they can only switch between these modes, not display multiple modes at once.

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By Walter, December 19, 2006 12:02 am

I picked up a couple of the SanDisk Cruzer 2GB U3 Titanium USB drives today because I found them for $50 each after an instant rebate at Costco. I’ve been needing to upgrade from my old 512 MB drive for some time anyway. The drive itself is beautiful – a brushed silver look with a thumb slide to extend the drive, so no more caps to lose.

Getting it installed on Windows Vista (RTM) was a little tricky, though. For those that don’t know, U3 is a system added onto these drives that lets you install applications (such as email and Web browser) on the drive and then run them from any computer you plug it into – in essence, carrying around your important apps with you. Sounds pretty cool in concept. The drives are formatted in two partitions – one a small partition that Windows sees as a CD-ROM drive and a larger partition that Windows sees as a USB drive.

Unfortunately, Windows Vista does not recognize U3 and cannot install the drivers for the smaller partition. You also cannot remove U3 without first having the drive recognized by Windows. So, I took it over to my Windows XP machine. On Windows XP, the drivers installed just fine. After playing with U3 a bit, I decided there were a few reasons I just didn’t care to have it:

• No Vista support yet.
• It loads up on any machine you insert the drive onto and putting it on a friend’s or coworker’s machine can make them (rightly) feel a little nervous about the extra menus that pop up.
• While the technology is cool, I just really didn’t have the need for it.

Getting rid of it proved tricky, though. You can’t just reformat or repartition the drive. You have to use an uninstall program. The U3 interface has an uninstall feature built in, but it didn’t work for me. When I tried to use it, it just told me there was no drive connected. I downloaded the uninstall program from SanDisk, but it turned out to be the same program and also could not recognize the drive to do the uninstall. Of course, the drive was there and working just fine. The only program that couldn’t see it was the uninstaller.

Seems a lot of people have similar problems getting rid of the U3 software, though, because U3 has created a U3 Uninstall Web site that lets you remove U3 from any drive that has it installed. After telling the site a couple of times that I was really, really sure I didn’t want their amazingly useful software, it finally let me reformat the drive to work as a simple USB drive. One catch, though. Once you remove U3 from your drive, you cannot reinstall it.

When I plugged the drive back in on the Vista machine, Vista recognized it right away.

Now, what I like about the drive itself (and that’s pretty much everything but the U3 software):

• It looks great, as I mentioned.
• It has a retractable key.
• It’s extremely strong – rated to withstand 2,000 lbs of pressure.
• It is blazingly fast.

I plan to use one of them to test out Vista’s new ReadyBoost feature, so when I get around to that, I’ll be sure to post a review of how it does.

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By Walter, December 14, 2006 5:05 pm

Exchange Server 2007 went to RTM last Friday (December 8, 2006). Trial versions are now available at Microsoft’s Exchange site. You can download the 32-bit version or the 64-bit version, but only the 64-bit version is supported for production use (and obviously requires Windows Server 2003 64-bit). The 32-bit version is full-featured, but is only for testing purposes. Enjoy!

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By Walter, December 11, 2006 6:30 pm

For you creative gaming types with some C# skills, Microsoft has just released XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 and the XNA Framework. The development environment is geared toward letting students and hobbyists create games for Windows and the Xbox 360 (though if you want to run your games on the 360, you have to join the XNA Creators Club, which runs about $49 for four months or $99 per year and is available through the Xbox Live Marketplace).

XNA Game Studio Express 1.0 requires Windows XP (no official Vista support yet, though their FAQ says it will install on Vista).

Independent game developers rejoice!

Now somebody get to work and make me an Xbox Live version of Mail Order Monsters.

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By Walter, November 11, 2006 12:32 am

Of all the new technologies the folks at Microsoft Live Labs have been putting out, Photosynth is one that really puts a smile on my face when I play with it. And it’s now available for you to play with in the form of a technology preview. Photosynth analyzes collections of digital photos for similarities, builds them into a three dimensional space, and lets you browse through them. From the site:

Each photo is processed by computer vision algorithms to extract hundreds of distinctive features, like the corner of a window frame or a door handle. Photos that share features are then linked together in a web. When the same feature is found in multiple images, its 3D position can be calculated. It’s similar to depth perception – what your brain does to perceive the 3D positions of things in your field of view based on their images in both of your eyes. Photosynth’s 3D model is just the cloud of points showing where those features are in space.

Though not ready for primetime (the product is still in pre-beta) and you can’t yet upload your own photos, you can take the technology preview for a spin with some existing photos on the site. Check it out!

A couple of notes:

• You must use Internet Explorer 6 or 7
• You must allow a small (~5MB) Active X control to install
• You must have a fairly modern graphics card
• You must enable Direct3D, DirectDraw, and Hardware Acceleration on your computer. The Photosynth FAQ page has instructions on doing this.