Razz's Ramblings

If you were ever to run across the problem of opening large text files (upwards of 300-400MB), and Notepad comes up short for you, worry not for you have EditPad Lite. I had been using Notepad++ for a while but it simply refused to open one of my datasets (size:450MB) for a course project. Browsing for alternatives, I found this little gem which is free for non-commercial use. Sweet!

Labels: windows vista

My Windows Experience Index for Vista Home Premium is 4.0 (as shown in the pic above). My PC's specs are:

Intel Pentium 4 2.6GHz.
120 GB 7200RPM Ultra-ATA HDD
1GB Kingston DDR-400 RAM
nVidia GeForce 7600GT - 256MB Video RAM

From Windows Vista's standards, my PC turns out to be a "very good performing PC" even though I have a pretty old processor and motherboard chipset. Vista loves graphic memory no end and my GeForce 7600GT gives it all the memory it could possibly need. This means that I can play my favorite games with reasonable detail (one or two levels below Full Detail) and that too with only 1 GB RAM. Browsing around on the Internet, you'd find people arguing whether or not 1 GB RAM is enough for Vista. As you can see from my specs above, it's more than enough as my PC runs smooth as hell. I can run Firefox, Windows Media Player (with video playing), AVG Virus Scan and MS Word and my memory consumption is 75% only and it's slightly sluggish. More than acceptable if you ask me.

Obviously, I am limited by my board to upgrade RAM (since there are DDR2's around which I'll end up upgrading to someday) ... but if you have 1GB, you need not worry you'll run Vista just fine. Just make sure you don't clutter your Windows with too many startup programs and other stuff that can potentially slow it down. There's a nice article here by the Vista team that can help you boost your Vista's speed.

Labels: windows experience index, windows vista

You know you're running Windows when there are a plethora of programs that have gone unresponsive. there's no respite, as Task Manager simply does not show, neither does pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del do anything (In actual fact, it brings up an error that says: Logon process failed to create the security options dialog) And all I did was close a Firefox tab! Puhhleaseee! This leaves you with no option but to open Notepad, pen down a few lines in frustration and go for the RESET button.

Good old Windows! They should change it's tag line to something like:

Windows Vista - Crashes the same way as it's predecessor

And that's saying something! =)

Labels: windows vista

I remember this installation on XP used to be simple as hell before mySQL5 came out and PHP stopped their built-in support. Then, getting the right DLL for Apache servers proved to be a problem and for some time, users had to download the DLLs for the newer version from the web! While it ain't so messed up any more, installing these things on VISTA is still a bit tricky - certainly not as straightforward as before. For the record, I have VISTA Home Premium so I don't really if some of the issues I faced here also hold true for other editions.

So, to get started, I first installed Apache in C: drive only to find out VISTA did not let it create the configuration files - httpd.conf and mime.types. A workaround, install somewhere else or copy manually. While the installation steps are simple and need no walking through, I would, however, suggest changing the Control Apache Server shortcuts to always 'Run in Administrator' mode and set compatibility to 'Windows XP SP2' for Monitor Apache Servers link to get it to work.

Next up is mySQL. This installation is a breeze and needs no explaining IMO - no seriously!

Lastly, PHP - having extracted the .ZIP to C:\php\ (or whatever directory you wish), make sure you copy the files ntwdblib.dll and libmysql.dll to C:\windows\system32\ or else you can say good bye to mySQL support in PHP. Also, remember to uncomment these lines in php.ini:
extension=php_mysql.dll
extension=php_mysqli.dll

All this may sound simple enough, but without any prior experience of VISTA's circumspect behavior in such installations, this took quite some of my time. Btw, all this was in an effort to test Joomla's latest stable release for a bug fix which I'm glad to report has been fixed! Hurrah!

Here's the sofwtare versions I worked with:
Apache 2.2.4
PHP 5.2.2
MySQL 5.0
and of course VISTA Home Premium

Hope it helped!

Labels: apache, mysql, php, windows vista

Insightful look into the features of Windows Vista. Very well-written.

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/pretty-vista.ars

Labels: windows vista

Now that I finally had my hands on a licensed copy of Windows Vista (Home Premium), I was itching to get it on my system and install it for good. I ran the `Upgrade Advisor` before starting the install and it pointed out a couple of issues that had to be fixed before I could proceed. Most of these issues were to do with programs which were simply not compatible for the new OS for e.g., NERO, TweakXP, Norton Anti-Virus, ZoneAlarm etc. but all that was understandable and I could always get their newer versions. But the thing that worried was a warning on the `Intel System Management BIOS Driver`. After every other driver from Intel checked out fine, why in the world did the Vista Upgrade Advisor had no idea whether this particular SMBIOS driver would not work ?! Anyway, a little research on the Internet cleared up the confusion and I proceeded with the Install.

To my amazement, the whole OS installation completed in around 15 mins! Kudos to them for that really and the process was ridiculously simple. Another fantastic thing was that every hardware device on my computer was detected in advance and was working already when I booted for the first time! Overall, Vista gave my system a performance index of 4.0 primarily because I have a 256MB graphic card.

Graphics really are the first thing you notice about Windows Vista. The new AERO themes are glassy and translucent and look quite cool although when you turn it off, everything goes back to the Windows Classic style. The Sidebar comes with a couple of nifty gadgets and more can be downloaded from the web galleries. Some of the new features including Calendar, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Media Center etc. are very neat I must say. You can now give movies and pictures tags which makes searching for them a whole lot easier.

The Control Panel gets a major makeover in the form of new 'Centers' and options. There's a Tablet PC Settings section which comes pre-installed in all editions (a bit presumptuous on their part tbh). One of the new things in here are the Indexing Options where you can configure folders/files to be indexed in order to make searching for them faster. There are extensive multimedia options available like Movie Making/Picture Galleries/CD and DVD Burning in Vista. Not to mention all the games in XP get a major face-lift in Vista and actually look quite good especially my favorite i.e., Hearts.

All in all, a visually spectacular OS but not too different from XP and like they said on CNET, there's no compelling reason for anyone running XP SP2 smoothly to upgrade to Vista. That's about for my first impressions for now. I'll get into more technical stuff later on and post my findings here. For now, check out my desktop below (which wears a rather deserted look at present). This shot was took using the all-new Sniping Tool that comes with Vista!

Labels: windows vista