Overlooked

diane has been a faithful server for about 5 years. Before that it was a general purpose laptop for 3 years until its screen died.

I have been using as a file server, podcast server and backup server all this time.? Only need to restart the Real Audio application, time-to-time due to memory leaks.

The OS never caused a re-boot. This proves that NT based Windows can be very stable if your drivers are stable and you pay attention to your applications.

diane is being retired. She has been replaced by a younger and faster ex-laptop.

csw

System information for \\diane:
Uptime:??????????????????? 609 days 22 hours 53 minutes 47 seconds
Kernel version:??????????? Microsoft Windows 2000, Uniprocessor Free
Product type:????????????? Professional
Product version:?????????? 5.0
Service pack:????????????? 4
Kernel build number:?????? 2195
Install date:????????????? 06/02/2002, 22:12:56
Activation status:???????? Not applicable
IE version:??????????????? 6.0000
System root:?????????????? C:\WINNT
Processors:??????????????? 1
Processor speed:?????????? 365 MHz
Processor type:??????????? Intel Pentium II or Celeron
Physical memory:?????????? 192 MB
Video driver:????????????? NeoMagic MagicGraph256AV driver

My four year old Dell Insperion 610? was having power supply issues, so I asked our system manager for a new laptop–same as all the sales guys. WRONG.

He gave me a Dell Vostro 1520.? In addition to the total wrong name, Vostro, the design of this laptop is wrong for sales guys and wrong as a laptop.

1. Too big and heavy for sales guys/
2. While being too big, Dell shrunk the keyboard for no reason.
3. The big nice space in front of the keyboard to rest your hands get too HOT to rest your hands. The left side will cause damage to your hand–there should be a law against this.
4. The four USB? connections (4 is good) are in the wrong place. Two should be on the back and two should be on the left or right side, but closer to the screen. They get in the way (e.g. of the mouse).
5. Speaking of getting in the way, the headphones and microphone connectors are on the front. Again dumb place.
6. There are some nice buttons to control the media player and sound volume.? But the only feedback you get is a pretty blue light which your finger covers. Dumb.

I’ve told my system manager to get me a smaller, not hot, anything. This Dell Vostro (dump name) 1520 really should not be bought by anybody.

After using Bloglines for a few years, I have switched completely to Google/Reader.

I spend way too much time getting my news, politics editorials, F1 updates, latest gadgets, funny pages, Google Alerts, software updates, LinkedIn changes–everything, via RSS feeds. Bloglines was my RSS reader of choice and I spent hours using it.

Google/Reader’s user interface never appealed to me. Actually, I really like the Beta Blogines UI and could not figure out Google/Reader’s.

Over the holidays I got fed-up with Bloglines slow performance and outages.? I forced myself to try again Google/Reader. After a month, I am a happy convert.

I still don’t like how Google/Reader groups feeds when you read a entier folder, but the keyboard short-cuts for navigating folders (shift-n, shift-p, shift-o, shift-x) which started as a workaround have become the killer feature for me. Also, Google/Reader/Mobile is clean and fast.

I am sure that if Bloglines did not have operational problems I would have never switched–to much momentum. Now that I have, I am one happy puppie.

So long Bloglines and thanks for the fish.

Here are a few more Windows Mobile Applications I Cannot Live Without to add to my previous list.

• ceTwit
  is the best way I have found to upload photos from my phone to the web. It uses twitter and a site called twitpic. As a site affect, the link to the photo gets sent to my Facebook status feed. Works with SFRWAP too!
• iSkoot
  keeps me in touch with my Skype contacts. The IM part works fine, but the updates are a bit slow. The phone part works great for calling your Skype contacts. With my SFR subscription it costs nothing to call my Skype contacts. Works with SFRWAP too!
• playlistmgr
  is the Swiss army knife of the playlist world on Windows Mobile.
• klaxon
  is a basic alarm clock program that will ring until it wakes you up.

I use Windows Mobile V6.1. In addition to the standard Office applications that come with Windows Mobile, I use the following applications, which are presenting in order of usefulness:

• Pocket Player V3
  I use it for for listening to podcast, Internet radio, and audio books. Great playlist management ($$).
• MobSync V2
  I use it for syncing files between my phone and my laptop. Used every day for moving podcasts to my phone ($$).
• MyMobileR
  Remote terminal from my laptop to my phone. Useful if you have to type a lot on the phone or need a mouse (free).
• Pocket Informant V8
  I use it for contacts and agenda. The filtering for contacts and the agenda view are great ($$).
• TomTom V6
  I use it for GPS any time I am in the car. Also useful when walking in a town ($$$).
• TOMBO version 2.0 beta 4
  I use it for storing passwords, bank info, and reference notes. The simple text files are encrypted and are shared with the Windows version of Tombo; where I enter most of the info into Tombo (free).
• GSFinder V1.04
  File manager which is a lot more feature filled (free).
• MortButtons 2.5
  Finger friendly menu system (free).
• AE Button Plus V2.6
• Redefine any button on the phone. I have one button for ALT-TABing through the open applications and one for turning off the screen.

Update 7-Dec-08

The last three applications I have not installed. I have only missed AE Button Plus V2.6, but the phone has been much more stable without it, so have not installed it.

If you need this sort of thing, and I do, works as advertised. Can even re-attached files if needed.

Outlook Attachment Remover Add-in

“Free Outlook add-in for saving and extracting attachments, decreasing the size of your Outlook files. Easy-to-use. Plenty of features”.

http://www.kopf.com.br/outlook/

Surfing the web using a browser without tabs is a complete waste of time. Surfing the web on a phone without tabs is even worse.

To be sure Opera Mobile is a better web browser than IE for Windows Mobile and it has tabs. But Opera Mobile does not work with my service provider (SFR blocks it) so unlimited wapsfr surfing on my phone using Opera Mobile.  SFR only supports IE .

Web Viewer for WM5/6 adds tabs to IE (plus a few more features). Easy to use  and works fine with wapsfr. I found it via Download Squad.

Time-to-time I’ve noticed that one of my svchost.exe processes on Windows XP consumes an inordinate amount of CPU. I’ve now figured out why.

There are several svchost.exe processes on Windows XP. The one of interest is the one supporting all the network services. It is started with the command line:

C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs

While I am in the office, my WiFi interface connects to an Access Point (AP), but the AP does not give the interface an IP address. It seems that when this happens, the svchost.exe process does not give up trying to get an IP address via DHCP. When it does, the svchost.exe process consumes 20%-30% of my CPU.

The solution is to disable the WiFi interface while in the office.

Good bits the same:

• Great sound quality when you have a good Internet connection.
• Free calls to 800 numbers
• IM

Skype only bits:

• Group conference easy to setup (add people to your conference). The host has all traffic and costs
• Cost is higher than Gizmo (€1.19/hour vs €0.85). Also has a €0.045 connection fee.
• More people use it.
• Network stats available
• Voice mail is not free.
• Worldwde local SkypeIn phone numbers.

Gizmo only bits:

• Group conference easy to setup (create conference and invite people to join). The host has no traffic and everybody pays their PSTN costs. There is a conference mode which works only with Gizmo users and is free.
• Cost is low than Skype (€0.85 vs €1.19/hour)
• Works with any SIP network.
• CPU usage is lower than Skype.
• Voice mail is free.
• Only USA Gizmo phone numbers.

Amazing to learn something this basic and so useful after all these years of using Windows.

When you see a Windows error dialog that you want to preserve, no need to screenshot it (as I have been doing all these years).

To make a copy, just press Ctrl-C ! You get an nice text copy:

—————————
xplorer²
—————————
\\diane\d$\usr\willy\radio\atc200700613\atc20070061317.mp3
Error reading from source

Windows error = 3: The system cannot find the path specified.

—————————
Abort Retry Ignore
—————————

Cool !

This tip found from lifehacker.com.