Rob’s Blog

Officially Windows 7 hasn’t supported upgrading Beta and RC builds but that hasn’t stopped people from doing it anyway. Now that Windows 7 is released to RTM, and was published to TechNet and MSDN yesterday, millions of users around the globe are starting the migration to this latest and highly anticipated iteration of Windows. Officially Microsoft says you will need to reformat your drive and start from scratch, using Windows Easy Transfer to migrate to a new version of Windows 7 (official guide here). However, some users may not want to reinstall their old programs even though Windows Easy Transfer is said to migrate your settings for these programs.

I’ve created this simple guide on how to upgrade Window 7 RC to the RTM build without using Windows Easy Transfer, but rather the upgrade option that is normally not available in this scenario. Read more…

It was only a matter of time…

First we have Google Docs in 2007,

Then Google Chrome and Google Android OS in 2008,

and now Chrome OS in 2009.

Slowly Google is continually positioning itself as a bigger thorn in the side of Microsoft (and Apple soon) than ever before. My speculation is that a desktop/laptop OS is next. But who gets hurt more from this, is it Apple or Microsoft? While Apple’s marketing is laser-focused as the alternative to the PC, where does Chrome OS lie? My speculation is that a desktop/laptop Chrome OS will steal market share from Apple as another alternative to Windows. In the netbook arena, however, Windows XP and Windows 7 Starter will have a new competitor. Sure, Linux has had its challenges in the netbook market, but this one is Google branded…

Why netbooks? Well, that’s easy. All netbooks have the same basic specs: Atom processors, Intel GMA, etc. Like Apple’s OS X, it’s a simpler kernel than having to support multiple OEMS, specs, etc (which is what Windows needs to do natively).

I must say that I’m surprised though it’s called Chrome OS and not Android or something else. I would have figured an Android netbook version would have been their offering.

Let’s see how many OEMs alter course after gearing up for the Windows 7 RTM. I suspect we will see Chrome versions of popular netbook offerings.

With Google becoming increasingly powerful (and arguably, Microsoft-like), will their “don’t be evil” internal company mantra hold up? We’ll just have to find out.

PS – As the well-known user-friendly Linux distro, I wonder how Canonical (Ubuntu) feels.

In a move not expected any time soon, Microsoft has released Windows Vista SP2 for public download. Commenters on Engadget claim there are noticeable performance gains and improvements made to the OS after installing this. If this is true, this should keep Vista users happy until Windows 7 is released – or longer.

Download links here:

32-bit (x86) download
64-bit (x64) download

Over the weekend AVG pushed out an update to their client. This update breaks Windows 7 by causing a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) after 3 – 5 minutes of using the machine. While I haven’t done extensive research on the issue, removing AVG seems to have fixed the problem. During the uninstall I got the BSoD error, which caused the process to be incomplete. Luckily it removes enough of AVG to have it show disabled when the PC is rebooted. Running the uninstall again makes sure it’s completely out of the system. I’m hoping AVG gets this problem fixed ASAP so I can re-install their virus protection on my PC. After recently having to fix Kaspersky’s BSoD on my system, I really hope I don’t have to install Norton by default.

More to come!

UPDATE: Looks like this issue isn’t only related to AVG.

Last week I read on SlickDeals that InvisibleSHIELD had a 50% off sale  and free shipping promotion going on. I’ve heard many positive reviews on this product and decided to give it a try. Hey, for $12 shipped you can’t go wrong. I’ve been getting tired of my military grade Sprint case because of its bulk. After installing it I must say this product is impressive so far. It’s nice not having to worry about scratching up my shiny new phone anymore. The film is very thick and looks impenetrable by anything other than a knife. Installation took over an hour and wasn’t easy because of the small peices. Apparently over the next few days the film will get tighter and I’ve already noticed the micro air bubbles slowly going away. Check out my install pics below: Read more…

According to this article, Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard  drives are failing at an alarming rate globally. Ask any Seagate user and this will be no news to them as this has been a hot topic on the forums for a little while.

This article is concerning though. I’ve had 4x 750GB 7200.11 in a RAID 5 in my NAS since June. When I first bought the parts to build the system, 2 of the drives came DOA. Newegg quickly replaced them and I’ve been fine since. No weird clicking anymore but this makes me think I should consider running RAID 6 dual parity incase two drives fail at once. Having all the build dates nearly the same is worrysome. Even with rock solid linux RAID I won’t be able to sustain two drive failures.

As the race is on its final days, things are starting to heat up for Mitsubishi – literally – on the Atacama Desert. Due to technical problems they are unable to finish stage 12, giving them a 6th place in the stage. In finishing they would have received a 3rd place ranking, moving up in the overall race ranking. Here’s an excerpt from Mitsubishi-dakar.com:

The crew Nani Roma and Lucas Cruz of the Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart team did not succeed in passing the white dunes of the Atacama Desert. The Spanish duo was stuck halfway through the stage while they were still in the middle of the mountains of sand.

An as yet unidentified technical problem prevented them from being able to finish stage 12, where they would have held 3rd place after the driver Carlos Sainz (VW) dropped out.

The Dakar is a difficult cross-country rally and nothing has been won until the finishing line of the last stage has been crossed. All the competitors know this very well, and nobody makes any predictions before that last important day.

What do you think? Can Mitsubishi pull off a win?

So I have found the solution to the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and it had nothing to do with nVidia’s Windows 7 pre-release driver. When I first installed Windows 7, it notified me that I had no anti-virus software (obviously) and listed three recommendations, one of which was free: Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7 technical preview. I’ve heard many good things about Kaspersky and decided to give it a try.

Kaspersky Lab releases technical preview of Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Windows 7

After installing it seemed like it was working OK, but after a while it would generate a BSOD with the error pointing to kl1.sys. A quick Google search revealed that this file belongs to Kaspersky AV. I uninstalled it, installed AVG Free and I’ve been error-free since.

Now Windows 7 is running completely stable and fast. For being a beta release it runs pretty much like an RC, except for the recent MP3 corruption hotfixed they pushed out yesterday. Great job so far, Microsoft.

After much anticipation from the tech community, last weekend Microsoft released Window 7 Beta to the public – initially with a 2.5 million download limit (which was removed today). Being the geek that I am, I decided to download and install it and see if the next iteration of Windows lives up to the hype. I was delighted to know that the beta ISO was available on TechNet, which I am a proud (and paid) an member of. Not having to deal with the public download frenzy, I painlessly downloaded the 3+ GB Windows 7 64-bit ISO and began the install process. Here’s my breif review and initial impression of the OS. I will be going in to more detail in future posts. Read more…

After about 18 months of use, my stock Sony VAIO SZ460N battery started showing signs of wear. To Sony’s credit, I am very impressed as the wear is very minimal – maybe 5 – 10% less capacity. I was browsing ebay and found a 7200mah extended battery for $55.61 plus $12.99 shipping, which is incredible considering the OEM version of this same battery sells for $265 on Amazon. It was an obvious decision.  Read more…