I was just reading an article on how Windows Vista may have affected Microsoft’s earnings in 2008. The article didn’t blame Vista per se, but it did blame Vista, Windows XP and the sale (or lack thereof) of computers due to the lagging economy. As everyone most likely already knows, most of the sales of computer operating systems are tied to the sales of computers, because the operating systems come installed on the computers. When computers don’t sell, neither do the operating systems.
The article talked about how people were generally dissatisfied with Windows Vista and that may have been taking its toll on computer sales. In other words, people were willing to stick it out with Windows XP and an older computer, until a new operating system is released. They said that many computer users are waiting for the release of Windows 7. This is what I found interesting…
Here is my logic: If people didn’t want Vista in the first place and were willing to keep an older operating system, how is a new operating system going to fix the problem?
As far as I know, there really isn’t all too much of a pull for a new version of Windows. I totally understand the need to come up with new and better products, but a new version of an operating system every few years isn’t really necessary. Especially when so many users out there are perfectly willing to use an older one. Why not build on that one?
Here is a disclaimer: I have absolutely no reason to believe I know what I am talking about when it comes to the inner workings of software. I am merely stating simple observations.
So here is my question: Has anyone taken an in-depth look at Windows 7? From what I can tell, it looks a lot like other versions of Windows, with things arranged differently, along with some new icons. I am sure the developers over at Microsoft would like to slap me for saying that. I wouldn’t mind someone familiar with the system to comment.
Now, if you remember the beginning of this saga, I increased the size of the page file to a minimum of 1000MB and a maximum of 6000MB. I did this because I was getting a blue screen after sleep mode in Windows Vista. The more I look, the more popular I am finding this particular occurrence.
I believe I made this change on Friday. Everything went fine on Friday and all Saturday. I thought the problem had been solved. Sunday morning, I woke up and here is what happened:
- Woke computer up
- Typed password
- The computer hung for a few minutes on the welcome screen
- The blue screen appeared
- After about 30 seconds, the computer automatically went to the black Windows Recovery screen
- The computer started normally
I did manage to write down a few things. At the top of the blue screen, I saw the “kernel_data_inpage_error” message. Then, below, I saw the following code – 0×0000007a. I also saw 9ca4d081, 9ca2e000, 0xc04e5268. I am not sure if those last ones mean anything.
On Sunday evening, something different happened:
- Woke computer
- Types password
- The computer hung for a few minutes
- I was presented with a black screen that didn’t go away
- I had to click the button on the front of the computer to restart it
- The computer started normally
It seems that the longer I let the computer sleep, the more this happens. If I wake it up after a short time, everything is fine.
I called Dell Support again and talked with a different tech. I emailed him the Windows minidump file and he analyzed it. I am not sure it showed him anything new. Then, we ran the Windows diagnostic. Everything was fine there…no hardware issues.
We decided to raise the page file to a minimum of 4602 and a maximum of 6144. I am going to run this for a few days and report back to Dell with what I find.
Just a word of warning, I really don’t know what I am talking about in this post. I gathered some fragments and decided to talk about them.
Ok, since I have been using this new computer, I have had a little issue. When the computer would go into sleep mode, things would be normal. When I would shake the mouse to wake the computer up, sometimes it would hang. After a while, I would get the blue screen that gave me an error. It was “kernel_data_inpage_error.” After the blue screen, the computer would automatically (after a dew seconds) go to the welcome screen and then start as normal. When it started, I would get the normal error box that pops up in Windows that told me the computer didn’t shut down properly and asks if I would like to report this to Microsoft.
Last night, I decided to call Dell support. I spoke with a guy who used a program to take over my computer so he could check some stuff out. He said that it was most likely a driver that was causing the issue. He then checked the paging file size. Reminder…I am running Windows Vista Ultimate. He said, “Hmmm, this is probably causing the problem.” I didn’t get a good look at it, but I believe the paging file size was too small. He increased it to 1000-6000 and things seem to be running smoothly.
After a few minutes, I realized that this computer is now much, much faster. I am assuming this has something to do with the paging file size. Now, it feels like I am working on the computer I bought.
Today, we went back to Devil’s Hopyard State Park in East Haddam for what turned out to be a grueling two mile hike. It felt good, but there was a lot of sweat involved. We went uphill and downhill and everywhere in between. You should’ve seen me huffing and puffing like a fat guy at the tops of the hills. All this hiking should get me in better shape though.
We hiked the entire orange trail which brought us up to the vista, which was very nice. Then, the trail brought us down to the river again and past the Devil’s Oven. We walked back up to the bridge and past the falls to the car.
I took some more photos of various areas of the orange trail. I really have to stop taking so many pictures. Laura is starting to call me a tourist. Hey, this is the way I live. I am on my third digital camera because I like to use them so much. Also, somebody has got to like these things besides me.
Here are the pics.
Trail marker showing the orange and blue trails.
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As you can see, I like moss.
Me, again, checking out the river.
Arriving at the vista on the orange trail.
The Devil's Hopyard State Park vista.
Looking up through some Hemlock trees.
This frog let me get really close to take a picture.
Looking down the Eight Mile River.
A close up of the river bank.
Walking back up the orange trail along side the Eight Mile River.
As I have mentioned before, Connecticut is the place to be if you like parks, hiking, mountain biking and recreation in general. We are learning that people around here take this stuff very seriously. When driving around, it’s hard not to see people jogging, riding bikes, playing golf…whatever.
Last week, we decided to drive down to East Haddam to visit Devil’s Hopyard State Park. I looked at this park’s trail map online and it looked good. The thing that really attracted me was the waterfall. As usual, I opened up Google Earth and checked it out from above. Well, all it looked like was woods. I don’t know, after seeing the satellite view, I didn’t think it looked all that great. We went anyway. I am usually wrong about these things.
I was really wrong about this one. I have been to many state parks in my life and I have to say this one was the best so far. The water does it for me. It’s a very low-key park. There are no highways around and it’s tucked back in the woods. The waterfall is great and the river adds a lot to the hike. This park is going to be on our list for a long time. They also offer camping, which is cool.
I took a bunch of pictures and will add captions where I think they would fit.
We parked on Helon Cone Rd., right off of Hopyard Rd. This was the enterance sign to Devil's Hopyard State Park.
Chapman Falls on Helon Cone Rd.
Stone bridge on Hopyard Rd.
Random photo of stones that make the stone bridge.
Nice rock I found.
The beginning of the unblazed trail heading towards the bottom of Chapman Falls.
Continuing down the unblazed trail.
Chapman Falls at Devil's Hopyard State Park.
Field down near the picnic area.
The covered bridge at Devil's Hopyard State Park.
Beginning to walk down the orange trail towards the Devil's Oven and the Vista.
Eight Mile River at Hopyard State Park.
Cool picture of some moss.
Sign leading to Devil's Oven.
Devil's Oven at Devil's Hopyard State Park.
The perfect camping spot along Eight Mile River.
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Lake at Devil's Hopyard State Park.
Cool dude leaning against a big tree. Is that my Sizzle Chest shirt again?
Like I said, it’s a really nice park. I also took some video. Check them out…
This is a very aggravating post to write. It’s a wonder I am sitting here and not in a mental hospital right now.
Let me offer some background. For the past few weeks, Laura’s computer has been showing the signs of hard drive failure. The computer is about 6 years old and has a 30Gb hard drive. It’s time to upgrade and get a new one. Last night, we ran out to Circuit City to pick one out. Upon looking at Circuit City’s selection, I was shocked to see about 95% of the computers now come with Windows Vista 64-bit. I asked the very new salesperson about that and he told me that’s the way they were coming now. Since I put my utmost trust in Microsoft, I figured that this is the way things were going to be and everything was going to work out fine. We picked out a HP Pavilion a6500f Desktop PC (KQ495AA#ABA).
When we got home, I started it up and did the things you do to a new computer. Then, I shut it down and put the old Linksys wireless card in and tried to run it. It didn’t work. I decided that I needed to find the Linksys 64-bit version of the adapter driver. Nope. No where to be found. Apparently Linksys hasn’t yet realized that this version of Windows is being sold to the masses. Oh well, I did some research and found that trying to find a wireless adapter for a 64-bit operating system is not all that easy. I finally narrowed my search down to a D-Link DWA-552 Xteme N Desktop Adapter. I chose this because it was available at Circuit City and the clock was ticking. We had work to do. We were now backed up a half-day. Also, the only reason I knew about this wireless adapter card was because I read about it on some forum discussing the issue. D-Link doesn’t officially support the 64-bit driver, yet they offer it. I had to download it from their website.
I ran up to Circuit City this morning to get the card, which wasn’t a problem. I came back and installed the card and had to call D-Link tech support for assitance installing the new driver. As I was on the phone with tech support, the computer froze. I restarted it (by physically pushing the on/off button) and continued to set up the driver. Everything set up fine without further event. I was able to connect to the network. Then, the computer froze again. I told tech support about this and she said there have been a few problems with this and I might need to update the BIOS. First of all, I don’t even know what a BIOS is, nor do I think I need to. It has nothing to do with my line of work. I tinkered with the computer for a few more hours and then called HP tech support. By the way, the computer kept freezing up (or crashing, whatever the difference is) about 25 more times during that few hours. It seemed to do it more when I was shutting down the computer and sometimes it got stuck on the welcome screen. The lady on the phone was nice and suggested that we burn some backup CDs and reinstall the operating system. I told her thanks but no thanks. I really don’t think I will be reinstalling the operating system of a 12 hour old computer. Seriously, this is not my problem.
I brought the computer back to Circuit City this afternoon and traded it for a less expensive (and slower) HP Pavilion A6400F Desktop PC. I just finished configuring it and (knock on wood) everything is good. It has the 32-bit version of Windows Vista. What a pain in the $%^&.
What is the moral of the story? Stay the hell away from Window Vista 64-bit, unless you want to sit there and try to get it to run. Can you imagine if I tried to install two things?
One of the things on my task list today was to order the new computer that I have been considering for the past few months. Laura’s computer started acting up yesterday and that gave me the push to get it done. We can’t be without these kinds of things.
1 4GB, DDR2 ECC SDRAM Memory 667MHz, 8X512MB,Dell PrecisionT5400 (I couldn’t go to the 800Mhz with these processors. Bumping up to faster processors added thousands to the cost.)
1 Entry Level, USB, No Hot Keys keyboards, Dell PrecisionWorkstations
1 C23 All SAS Hard Drives, RAID 5 for 3 Hard Drives, Dell Precision T7400
1 NO FLOPPY DRIVE, Dell Precision 490/690, Factory Install
1 Vista Ultimate SP1 with Media 32 Bit English Dell Precision (I decided to stick with the 32 bit operating system. I don’t need any surprises at the moment.)
1 Dell USB 2-Button Entry Mouse with Scroll for Dell Precision
1 16XDVD-ROM, Data Only, Dell Precision T3400
1 Cyberlink Power DVD 8.0,with Media,Dell Precision
1 Resource DVD contains Diagnostics and Drivers for Dell Precision T7400
1 PERC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card – For Connecting Internal Hard Drives, Dell Precision
7400
1 Norton Internet Security 2008 English, 2 Year,Dell OptiPlex Precision and Latitude
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service Initial Year
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service Extended Year(s)
1 ProSupport for End Users: 7×24 Technical Support and assistance for end-users, Initial
1 ProSupport for End Users: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response Initial Year
1 ProSupport for End Users: Next Business Day Parts and Labor Onsite Response 2 Year Extended
1 ProSupport for End Users: 7×24 Technical Support and assistance for end-users, 2 Year Extended
Basically, the reason for this new computer is get some beef in the processor department as well as the additional and faster hard drives. I added RAM to my current computer and while I got a minimal performance increase, I don’t think RAM was the issue. I also thought that getting the on-site support was important.
I should get the system next week and will continue to use my current computer for other, non-critical tasks.
This one is for those people out there who know about computers. When people are searching for a new computer, they usually ask me what to get. I say something like, “I design websites, what the heck do I know about computers?” That usually gets some mean look and the person walks away. I haven’t been known for my bright attitude at times.
Well, I usually do ok, but I am getting a little tired of buying computers. I want my next one to last. I bought the one I am working on about 6 months ago. I am going to keep this one for something, but I need a monster. Here is the issue…I work with tons of files. One of my sites has 59,000 image files that I need to copy/paste, delete, move, whatever. That’s just one example. I also have very large files that I need to open/close, etc… My problem isn’t the need for processor power to run huge applications or for gaming, I just need something for big, and lots of files. Uploads and downloads are my middle names. I have been working on getting the fastest servers available and now my bottleneck has become my PC.
Here is what I am thinking:
- Dell Precision T7400 Workstation
- Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5405 (2.00GHz,2X6M L2,1333) (Do I need a 2nd processor?)
- Genuine Windows Vista® Business, with Media (I’m willing to move on from XP. Plus, Vista actually puts the computer in sleep mode, like I never got XP to do. Big power savings.)
- 3 Year ProSupport for End Users and 3 Year NBD On-site Service (This is important because I want someone in this house if the computer breaks.)
- 256MB PCIe x16 nVidia NVS 290, Dual Monitor DVI Capable ( I know absolutely nothing about video cards.)
- 4GB, DDR2 SDRAM FBD Memory, 667MHz, ECC (4 DIMMS) (I want more.)
- C23 All SAS drives, RAID 5, 3 drive total configuration ( I also know nothing about RAID. I basically want the speed of SAS drives, the speed of two drives working together and the redundancy of a third drive. I don’t know the difference between RAID 0 and RAID 5.)
- Three 146GB SAS Hard Drives, 1 inch (15,000 rpm) (How much faster are SAS drives than SATA drives?)
- PERC6/i SAS/SATA Hardware RAID Card – For Connecting Internal Hard Drives
- Dell 1505 Wireless-N PCIe Card
So there you have it. I already have a monitor, so that’s cool. I think I can save a few bucks by switching out the SAS drives for SATA drives. It depends on what I find out about them. I want more RAM, but didn’t see the option for more. I am wondering about another processor and the video card.
Pardon me, I am just venting. I really have never, in my life, used an operating system as buggy as this. It’s like I am in constant wonder about what is going to happen the next time I restart the computer. Yes, that’s right…restart, just like the good ‘ol Windows 98 days. Boy, that was fun.
What was the purpose of this version of Windows anyway? I had been happily using Windows XP for years when my hard drive went bad. Every computer Circuit City sold had Vista installed on it, so I didn’t think anything of it. Man, what a mess. I remember writing something like this a few months ago, you know, complaining about Windows Vista. I said that it is slow (which it is). Someone responded by telling me it isn’t Windows that is slow, it’s my hardware. Gee, that’s weird. My last computer with XP blew this thing away (and still would) and that computer is now about four years old. I now have a dual core processor with the same amount of RAM. How is my hardware worse?
All I know is that someone over somewhere better get something done. I may just have to ask for my money back. Do they do that? I know about the Lemon Law for cars, but…
I run a bunch of servers for my business. One server, in particular, is better and more advanced than the others. Well, the server isn’t more advanced, the software installed on it is. On that server, I am running Plesk, which I have learned is fantastic.
I recently began automating many of my more boring tasks by using cron jobs. A “cron is driven by a crontab, a configuration file that specifies shell commands to run periodically on a given schedule.” Basically, if you have an application that needs to run on a schedule and is capable of being triggered by a cron job, using this feature can be a real time saver.
One of the reasons I didn’t start using this nice little feature sooner is because I had no idea how to set it up through SSH. When I got the new server with Plesk installed on it, setup became very easy. I Just used the “Scheduled Task” feature and it was all done.
Well, that’s all fine and dandy for the capable applications on the server running Plesk, but what about the other servers not running Plesk? I would still have to setup the cronjobs using SSH. Believe it or not, I have been avoiding setting up those jobs to this day. Just a bit of background…these jobs only need to run every few days or so. What I am about to suggest is not really suitable for jobs that need to run every few minutes.
Last night, I started fooling around with “Windows Scheduler.” The link I just gave you is for XP…the information I am going to give you below is for Vista. I am sure you will get the gist. Windows Scheduler is a great feature similar to cron that is installed on your own computer, not the server where your website is being hosted, but does something very similar. It automates those boring tasks that you and I would forget about very easily.
So, how do you run a cronjob with Windows Scheduler? If your cron enabled application has a file that needs to be visited (usually something like cron.php, or something along those lines), it’s quite simple. All you need to do is tell your personal computer to wake up, open a browser and visit that page. Here is how you do it:
The first thing you want to do is to open your control panel and click on “System and Maintenance.”
Then, on the next page, click “Scheduled Tasks.”
After you click that, you will be brought to the Task Scheduler screen. It’s a new window. I am going to go over how I set up a new task this morning. As I said above, all I wanted to do was to have a browser window open and automatically have it visit a particular URL.
The first thing I did was to click on the “Task Scheduler Library” and then on “Create Basic Task.” The Task Scheduler Library is where I am going to store these tasks.
After you click “Create Basic Task,” a window will open with space for you to describe your new task.
Fill in the information so it’s recognizable to you. Then, click next (down at the bottom). The next window is going to ask you when you want your task to run.
I set it to “Daily.” On the next screen, you can adjust it.
On this screen, you can describe more about your daily task, such as start date, time and frequency. I set mine to every other day (a 2 in the recur every: box).
This screen asks you what action you want to perform. As I said above, I wanted to open a browser, so I click the “Start a Program” button.
Here’s is the trickiest part. On the next screen, you have to choose which program and what additional arguments.
In the “Program/script” box, I browsed to open Firefox, which in this case gave me this path, “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe.” In the “Add Arguments” box, I put the URL of my cron file, such as “http://www.mywebsite.com/cron.php.”
In the final screen, you are offered a summary of what you filled in. I like the check off the “Open properties” box for some extra steps I needed to take. Click “Finish.”
The last few items are quite simple, so I won’t offer screen shots for them. When the Properties box opens up, click the “Conditions” tab up top. Since my computer goes into sleep mode after a half hour of non use, I want to wake it up to preform the task, so I click the “Wake computer” check box. Then, I click the “Settings” tab up top. In case the task is missed for some reason, I click the “Run task as soon as possible…” check box and the “If the task fails, restart every:” check box. You can put your own values in there.
When you are finished, hit “OK” and see how it goes. I tried this with a specific time when the computer was in use and it had no problems. I haven’t tried it when the computer was in sleep mode, so we’ll see what happens. Give it a shot and let me know your results.
