New Apple iMac Arrives The latest edition to the growing home computing center is an Apple iMac (Intel E7600 Core 2 Duo/8Gb RAM/1Tb HD/21.5"), which I promptly setup to use Boot Camp with Windows 7 as the default OS. This makes a great Family Room machine, in Windows or MacOS (despite missing HDMI port), and doubles as the iPhone development platform. What is more interesting is the purchase survey, which I took today. Apple New Purchase Survey Going though the questions it became clear that there...

One of the things I have always hated was “Windows Search”. Why the heck would I need “instant results” – instant as in donating countless CPU cycles and disk churns to background indexing operations running all day long on my box? YUK! I am never actually “looking” for something – I know where everything is. It’s right where I put it. Who are these people “looking” for things on their computers all the time? Typical Scenario My typical use case came up again this morning: I downloaded a source distribution...

The latest computer arrived today – an Asus EeePC 1005HA, the perfect Netbook Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz 2Gb RAM / 160Gb HDD / 1024x600 Wired 100BaseT / Wireless N Bluetooth 2.0 (stereo audio) Camera, SD slot, microphone $400 The Perfect Netbook The Asus EeePC 1005HA is a beautiful machine. For the same (little lower) price than Dell, Acer, HP, etc., you get the best in network screen resolution (1024x600), reasonable camera, great low-power CPU (hyper-threaded N280), super battery life (8+ hours real)...

Why would a company act against its own best interests? A while back, I purchased a Dell Inspiron 6400 from the small business store. My first boot experience can only be described as a nightmare – many minutes of disk crunching craziness only to be left with a useless machine running 79 processes! Seventy-nine! I tried to shut the piece of junk down, but got tired of waiting – killed the power. All I had was the “Dell Recovery DVD”, which promised to restore all 79 processes in their over-bloated...

The reliability manager, introduced in Windows Vista and included in Server 2008, is a great tool. At one glance, I can see installs, windows updates, crashes, etc, all laid out on a graph by date. For example, this machine I am typing on now crashed back on April 9th, an instance of Visual Studio 2005 (devenv.exe) hung when I ran it (April 21), and various updates were installed since then. In Windows 7, the Reliability manager snap-in is gone, and does not appear in the Computer Management console...

What a nice surprise, today. I had been hearing about improvements to the Windows audio stack for Windows 7, but I did not expect them to show up in Vista Service Pack 2. (Maybe I should have?) Connecting a Bluetooth Audio Device I have a Motorola HT820 stereo Bluetooth headset. Great device. When I turn this device on and pair it with the computer, it is logical to assume that I wish it to become my primary audio output device. Right? Previously, I had to use the Bluetooth control panel, connect...

I log off all the time. Finished using the laptop, log off. Use the kid’s machine to check a movie listing, log off. Jump on the server to perform some admin, log off. Check the weather on the wife’s machine, log off. Log in with Administrator account to perform application installation or other maintenance, log off. I never shut down. Just before going on vacation, shut down. Lightning storm, shut down. I never sleep. The computer goes to sleep all by itself, so I don’t have to. Besides, if I did...

Hey, this windows 7 thing is great! There are glassy, see-through window frames. I can make an image backup and restore to a new disk in 10 minutes flat. I love the DVD Maker capability. What a great screen snipping tool. Search box in the Start Menu! My install experience: I was only asked about 4 questions and took less than 15 minutes total time. I love the “CPU Usage” gadget that floats around the screen. You can see what specific services are running inside “services.exe” (or dllhost.exe etc.)...

Oops. I think its time to update this toolbar’s color scheme. :-) The “XP-Blue” did not look too out of place in Vista, but stands out in Windows 7, which typically sports much lighter toolbar color themes...

I hesitate to post on the new Windows 7 beta, but ... Installation My installation is a 32-bit install into a 3Gb virtual machine running under hyper-V. The result is “no Aero for me”, which removes plenty of the new eye candy, but I have a beefy host with plenty of memory. I will normally be logged in via Remote Desktop. The installation experience is nearly identical to Windows Vista. Most of the posts I have been reading praising the installation process are likely from people who have not done...