Category: Software

Long Delay

Not a moment too soon, considering my boss went crazy when she heard of my resignation and not only copied my entire computer, disabled my network account, changed all the admin passwords and even made my full-time counterpart go from computer to computer to change the local admin passwords.

Hey everyone. I just wanted to take a moment and fill you in on what has been going on with my life. I know it’s been a while since my last post, but a lot of this have happened.

First and foremost, the semester from hell has finally ended, and with a BANG! I received Academic Honors with an overall GPA of 3.61 (4.0, 4.0, 3.9, 3.3, 3.0). Winter was a really busy semester and I have a lot to show for it. Take a look at my academic projects page and get a feel for the systems I helped create this semester.

Second, I have a new job! After years of dealing with my boss’s inadequate understanding of technology and lack of managerial skills, I no longer have to work for the evil wench at the library and will be starting at my new job next week. Not a moment too soon, considering my boss went crazy when she heard of my resignation and not only copied my entire computer, disabled my network account, changed all the admin passwords and even made my full-time counterpart go from computer to computer to change the local admin passwords. I thought my last day was May 5, but whatever.

Third, I have some new articles in the pipeline including the Mac Mini Car Integration, Using and iPod/iPhone to Remote Control Your Life and my Letter to the Board.


Oakland University Advisory Board Meeting

As a senior at Oakland University, I must take a course where I work in a team and am assigned a certain project or task and we spend the semester developing a solution to the problem.

As a senior at Oakland University, I must take a course where I work in a team and am assigned a certain project or task and we spend the semester developing a solution to the problem. Oakland changed the senior design project this year for Computer Science and Computer Information Technology this year and my project was selected by the professor to be showcased in front of the department’s advisory board. Anyway, long story short, it went very well. Have a look for yourself!

 

Project Logo

Vista SP1 RC and XP SP3 RC

Well today’s the day.I’m up and running on my primary desktop with Windows XP SP3 RC. Haven’t noticed any speed increase, but time will tell. I’m Running SP3 v.3264. Loading Vista SP1 RC also.

Well today’s the day.I’m up and running on my primary desktop with Windows XP SP3 RC. Haven’t noticed any speed increase, but time will tell. I’m Running SP3 v.3264. xp-sp3-rc.jpg Loading Vista SP1 RC also. It’s taking forever…screenshot.jpg

Lenovo System Update Woes! **SOLVED**

For those of you who didn’t know, earlier this year I was having a great deal of trouble using Lenovo’s System Update application on my x60 Tablet. To quickly run this command, open up an command shell with elevated privileges and type the following: netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled Volia.

For those of you who didn’t know, earlier this year I was having a great deal of trouble using Lenovo’s System Update application on my x60 Tablet. Well thanks to a good friend over at FreePeters.com, we were able to solve the problem with one simple command. Any guesses as to what it could be?

If you guessed auto-tuning, you are CORRECT.

From now on, I will be disabling auto-tuning on every Windows Vista Machine I ever work on. To quickly run this command, open up an command shell with elevated privileges and type the following: netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled Volia.  Please, spread the word about this extreme annoyances and how to get around it.

Lenovo System Update Woes!

The computer was eligible for a Windows Vista Business Express Upgrade and I participated in the program and received my Windows Vista Business Express Upgrade DVD in March 2007 and waited until now to install Vista.

SOLVED!!! SEE BOTTOM 

System Update UGH.

In my career working with computers and technology, there is nothing I hate more than having to make a call to tech support. Without trying to inflate my ego, I like to think that people generally call me to help them with their technology related troubles, so when I end up having to call tech support, I usually expect to be treated like a complete noob by the support representative. And don’t get me wrong, I know first hand technical support is like, so making the support reps job any worse doesn’t help me. Generally, though, I have found overall if you are clear about the problem, you can either play dumb and they will repair the issue or you can play smart and they will repair the issue. Unfortunately, that was not the case this time.

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad x60 Tablet PC that I bought in the beginning of 2007, before Windows Vista was available pre-installed. The computer was eligible for a Windows Vista Business Express Upgrade and I participated in the program and received my Windows Vista Business Express Upgrade DVD in March 2007 and waited until now to install Vista. My problem now stems from the Lenovo ThinkVantage Technologies application called System Update. At it’s core, System Update is a pretty sweet program if you ask me. The application detects what kind of system you have (Serial & Model Info), goes online to the ThinkPad package repository, fetches all the necessary drivers, applications, patches and updates and then installs everything for the user.  I’ve used it many times in XP and it is quite remarkable. From an administrator’s point of view, it’s the easiest way to build and setup images for new computers. Gone are the days of individually downloading and installing drivers! Anyway, down to the problem.

I installed Windows Vista Business Edition with no trouble on my tablet and proceeded to go online and download the most recent version of System Update (3.01). All was well until I went to run the application. System Update has a 3 step process: 1. Determine model and retrieve relevant package info, 2. Prompt user to select appropriate packages, 3. Download + Install said packages. My problems begin in step 1. When running XP (and how SU should work in general), System Update usually takes no more than 30 seconds to determine and download the repository xml list. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case with Vista and my tablet. SU spent 15 minutes determining my machine type and downloading the list. After waiting what seemed like an eternity, I selected the packages and began the automated process. Again I was plagued with insanely slow download speed, but in good faith let the machine download overnight. To my grand surprise in the morning, every package failed to install. Even better, Lenovo ThinkVantage Support told me it was because of a bad Vista install (that I messed it up somehow) even though I had installed Vista fresh 3 times to try and fix it myself.

After nearly giving up, I discovered another program part of the TV SU Suite called Update Retriever, which goes online and fetches all the available packages for specified Machine Types and stores them locally. While that program didn’t work under Vista, it did work under XP (which I just happened to have made an image of before upgrading to Vista). After loading XP back, retrieving all the updates, reinstalling Vista and configuring System Update to look locally, it would appear everything worked. Man, what a bitch.

I called Lenovo support back today in reference to my case as I am still unable to use System Update properly and to my delight, they are just going to send me the Vista recovery media for my computer considering I have an active license from my OEM Vista copy! Hopefully I’ll have the discs in 2 or 3 days and we shall see how it goes!

This problem is solved by disabling autotuning in Microsoft Windows Vista. See the update post!

Take Note!

I, of course, have been using my laptop coupled with my favorite note taking app for Windows to take notes (paper + pencil is so archaic, duh). On that note, I have to say I am so sick of seeing people use Microsoft Word (Mac + PC) to take notes for classes.

After enjoying a couple months off from school, I find myself back in class four days a week learning basic biology. I, of course, have been using my laptop coupled with my favorite note taking app for Windows to take notes (paper + pencil is so archaic, duh). But for the first time in my academic career (outside my computer science classes, I should say), at least 1/2 of the students in the class are also using notebook computers to take notes! This is great proof that my generation (± a few years) are becoming more comfortable using computers for more than just Internet, email and media.

On that note, I have to say I am so sick of seeing people use Microsoft Word (Mac + PC) to take  notes for classes. While most people immediately flock to the o-so-familiar Microsoft Word app to record text, there quite a few applications for both platforms that perform much better for the task at hand.

Starting with OS X (as I started my note taking career on a Powerbook), there are of course the usual suspects: TextEdit (included with OS X) and Microsoft Word for Mac ($149). These two apps will do the job, but not very well. TextEdit is limited in functionality and Microsoft Word is heavy and not Intel native. This is where The Omni Groupcomes in. When I purchased my first Mac (Titanium Powerbook) it came with a program called Omni Outliner from The Omni Group. After messing around with other the other applications, I found Omni Outliner to be the best at keeping notes, thoughts and attachments in one simple workspace. The application is light (especially compared to Microsoft Word), Intel native and follows Apple’s Inspector driven interface. But best of all, Omni Outliner comes standard on EVERY Mac that ships, and it’s a full licesnse.
Omni Outliner

Omni Outliner makes it easy to:

  • Use rich style sheets to define your document’s template
  • Add attachments directly to the file (not just references, be embedded files)
  • Easily create multiple bullet styles, including check marks for lists!
  • Easily create bookmarks throughout your document for quick reference
  • Export to multiple file formats, including PDF, XML, PlainText, RTF and more

For those of you who use Microsoft Windows as your operating system, fear not. At the launch of Office 2003, Microsoft added a new application to the suite called One Note. At it’s core, OneNote is a digital notebook (which I believe to be heavily inspired by the emergence of Tablet PCs) that can be used for note taking, project management, brainstorming and more. It features a familiar WYSIWYG interface with a few exceptions. First, there is no save button. OneNote is always saving, always tracking changes, and therefore requires no manual saving. In OneNote 2007, Microsoft released new features that allow users to make audio and video recordings of meetings or lectures, for example (hardware dependent of course) as well as share their notebooks with other users and collaborate simultaneously. As far as the Windows world goes, there isn’t any comparison. OneNote 2007 delivers the best note-taking product I have ever used and I highly recommend it to anyone using their Windows based PC to take notes. Download a free trial from Microsoft here, but students rejoice! There is an Academic edition of OneNote 2007 available also!
Microsoft One Note 2007Microsoft One Note 2007 Academic Edition – $44.95 from Academic Superstore